Project Description

Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the Nation. Oral history is a modern research technique involving an interviewee and an informed interviewer in spontaneous conversation. The taped record is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The resulting manuscript is typed in final form, indexed, bound with photographs and illustrative materials, and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

Use Restrictions

All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and S. I. Hayakawa dated March 15, 1989. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, 486 Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. The legal agreement with S. I. Hayakawa requires that he be notified of the request and allowed thirty days in which to respond.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

S. I. Hayakawa and Margedant Peters Hayakawa, "From Semantics to the U.S. Sentate, Etc., Etc.," an oral history conducted in 1989 by Julie Gordon Shearer, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1994.

Copy no. —

Cataloging Information

HAYAKAWA, S. I. (1907-1992) and HAYAKAWA, Margedant Peters (b. 1915)

Semanticist, U.S. Senator

From Semantics to the U.S. Senate, ETC., Etc. 1994, xx, 469 pp.

Hayakawa family, childhood, and university education in Canada; Ph.D., 1934, University of Wisconsin; teaching, University of Wisconsin Extension, 1935-1939; Peters family of Illinois, marriage to Margedant Peters; Chicago: general semantics, Alfred Korzybski, Illinois Institute of Technology, 1939-1947; and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy; publication of Language in Action, 1941; Hyde Park, racial and ethnic groups, issues of concern in writing for Chicago Defender; founding International Society for General Semantics and journal ETC. A Review of General Semantics; children raising theories and practice; interest in African art, jazz; professor of English, San Francisco State College, 1955-, presidency, 1968-1973,; campus, student political activities and strike, and public reaction. Interview with Hayakawa and Stanley Diamond on U.S. English and bilingualism; background of relationship, further on San Francisco State and student unrest; reform of bilingual education, and ethnic support and opposition. Interview with Hayakawa and legislative director Elvira Orly on U.S. Senate term, 1977-1983, Washington staff and campaign, issues and causes, public relations, effectiveness. Interview with administrative aide Jeanne Griffiths. Interview with Daisy Roseborough, Hayakawa housekeeper since 1948. Appendices include selected writings on art, communication, co-ops, political parties, race relations, and U.S. English.

Introductions by Alan R. Hayakawa, Wynne Hayakawa, and Warren M. Robbins, founder and director emeritus, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Interviewed 1989 and 1993 by Julie Gordon Shearer. The Regional Oral History Office of The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Margedant Peters Hayakawa

Margedant Peters Hayakawa, the widow of the former U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa, died yesterday in Marin County after a long illness. She was 82.

Born February 5, 1915, in Evansville, Ind., Mrs. Hayakawa was the daughter of the founding editor of the Evansville Press newspaper. She matriculated at the University of Wisconsin, where she earned a bachelor's degree in English. While at university, she met Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa, who was pursuing a Ph.D. in English. The two married on May 29, 1937.

The couple lived in Chicago through the 1940s. During that time, Mrs. Hayakawa — who used her maiden name, Margedant Peters, for more than a decade after her marriage — worked as an editor for Poetry Magazine.

Her literary bent later combined with an intense love for horticulture and native flora. She edited Fremontia, the journal of the California Native Plant Society, in the 1970s and 1980s, and she founded and edited Pacific Horticulture, a quarterly magazine published by the Pacific Horticulture Foundation.

She also was a tireless advocate of neighborhood cooperative ventures.

Following a stormy tenure as president of San Francisco State College, S.I. Hayakawa was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1976. Mrs. Hayakawa, however, declined to live in Washington during the six years of her husband's term.

"I had a brother with Down Syndrome, and she felt it would be better for him if she stayed in the Bay Area," said Wynne Hayakawa, Mrs. Hayakawa's daughter.

In addition to her daughter, of San Francisco, Mrs. Hayakawa is survived by her sons, Alan Hayakawa of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, and Mark Hayakawa of Mill Valley, and five grandchildren. No memorial services are planned. The family has requested that contributions be sent to the California Native Plant Society or the Marin Association for Retarded Citizens.

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Introduction--by Alan HayakawaAlan Hayakawa wrote this remembrance of his father for the fiftieth anniversary of ETC. A Review of General Semantics. Currently he is preparing a sixth edition of Language in Thought and Action.

"What does your father do?"

"He's a general semanticist." Try saying that when you're in nursery school.

By the time the kids got big enough to say "What's that?" I had a new answer ready. "It's the study of how not to make a damn fool of yourself."

All my life people have asked about my father. Almost every week I meet someone who asks, "Hayakawa--say, are you related to S. I. Hayakawa? I remember so clearly . . ." Most made his acquaintance through Language in Thought and Action. through ETC. A Review of General Semantics. or through his teaching and lecturing. Others saw him in the news during the San Francisco State strike of 1968-69. Still others remember him as a United States Senator or as the proponent of an official role for the English language. A few even remember him as a jazz critic and lecturer on the history of the blues. To my brother and sister and me, he was, before all those things, just Don.

The whole family called him that. As a graduate assistant in the English department at Wisconsin, he had a professorial air and a (Canadian) British accent, so students took to calling him a "don." My mother, who met him when she was an undergraduate, always called him that, and so my sister and brother and I did too.

I remember him puttering around the apartment in Chicago, fixing things or assembling gadgets out of a collection of nuts, bolts, saved string and wire, and pieces of wood. I remember him playing catch with me and pitching while my friends and I took turns hitting. I remember playing as a toddler on the black marble-pattern linoleum floor of his study while he and my mother and other grown-ups read galley proofs for issues of ETC. I must have soaked up some of their conversations, because for years afterward he proudly quoted me as saying, "All crows are black, at least all those I've seen."

Looking back, I think Don's study of general semantics deeply permeated his personality. He was the most open person I have known and

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the least prone to signal reactions. He seldom responded before questioning or reflecting. Once, when I was doing high-school homework to the accompaniment of top-40 radio, he came into my room and asked, "Can you study with that racket?" When I said it didn't seem to be a problem, he mentioned a college roommate who had always studied with the radio on. He said the roommate became a newspaper reporter, for whom the ability to concentrate amid bedlam had come in handy. Now that I am a father too, I realize that, rather than simply tell me what he thought was right for me, Don first asked a real question. Then he listened to what I had to say and let that affect his response.

My view of the San Francisco State strike is limited. I see Don distantly, as through the wrong end of a telescope, not only because I was on another campus in another state, but because I was a young adult and he was a father in a time that was difficult for many parents and children. Yet our relationship was less difficult than that of many of my peers with their parents, and the natural friction that surrounds a child's growing up, leaving home, and establishing an independent identity was a far more important factor than politics. We disagreed about Vietnam, for example, but he listened to my opinions and reasoned persuasively from facts.

It fascinates me how people's impressions of him differ, depending on whether they knew him as writer, teacher, strike-breaking administrator, or senator. The student strike forever changed the way people saw Don, and many found the change puzzling. Indeed, a minor pastime in the general semantics community developed around "Hayakawa watching," the collecting and comparing of quotes and anecdotes.

Perhaps as students of general semantics we all should have understood that "Hayakawa₁ is not Hayakawa₂ is not Hayakawa₃." Although general semantics teaches us to beware of the assumption that any person or thing is ever exactly the same from moment to moment or year to year, many people were truly surprised at his tough line toward the student strike. Wasn't he supposed to be the great listener, the communication expert? Wasn't the task of communication to find common ground? If the underlying ethical premise of general semantics is that cooperation is preferable to conflict, why did he rip the wires out of that sound truck? I have puzzled with this question for a long time, and I think I have part of an answer. The question is really about Don's essential nature, about what central principles motivated him.

First, Don was very much committed to the idea of a university as a place where men and women can freely pursue ideas, wherever their study might lead them. For example, in his own work, dating back to his studies with Korzybski and the writing of Language in Action as an antidote to Nazi propaganda, he was interested in understanding and defusing the symbolic strategies used to manipulate and control human

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thought. Through the several editions of that book, the focus shifts from the Nazis to the communists to advertising to television.

In the student strike Don saw a withdrawal of cooperation that no communication skills could overcome. Indeed, he saw his predecessors' attempts at finding common ground meet with reduced cooperation and increased demands. Although he was committed to cooperation over confrontation, he did not believe that confrontation was always to be avoided at all costs. I hold that as a valuable lesson.

The other unifying thread of Don's life was his love for the English language. As a graduate student, he told me, he worked on a dictionary of Middle English. After defining many rare and technical terms, which because of their specialized use were relatively simple to define, he was thrilled when he was asked to define a richly layered word like "little." Then, he said, he felt he was making a real contribution to the project.

That love of the language was probably shaped in part by Don's father, Ichiro Hayakawa, who left Japan for the United States early in this century with the goal of becoming a writer in English. Although Grandfather never became a writer, he read English literature all his life and, because of his fluency, once had a small speaking role in a Hollywood movie. Don's mother had very limited English, so Don was bilingual until he was about five years old. He often described his own writing style as an attempt to put things in a way his mother could understand. I remember visiting my grandfather in Japan on his eighty-eighth birthday and hearing Don, then sixty-five and a university president, but not yet a United States Senator, telling his father what he had achieved in his life. I could sense desire for his father's approval.

When Don was elected to the Senate in 1976, I was working as a city reporter at The Oregonian. Late in 1979 or early in 1980, I accompanied him on a trip to southern California. I remember him telling a group of Orange County Republicans that, with any luck, the GOP would gain a Senate majority in the 1980 election and that his influence and California's would thus be greatly enhanced. Yet as a senator he never engaged in the kind of image-building at which other politicians work so hard and which in his earlier life he had labored to understand and decode. As a result, he was defined in the public eye as much by his offhand witticisms--on the Panama Canal, "We should keep it; we stole it fair and square," and on gasoline shortages, "The poor don't need gas"--as by his legislative work. Still, during his time in the Senate he developed one of his most famous and controversial ideas, the proposed English language amendment to the Constitution.

Early in 1981, when Don asked me to work for his re-election campaign, the amendment had recently been drafted at Don's request, and

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his Senate office staff was trying to decide how best to promote it. Leave aside for a moment the pros and cons and see the amendment from the point of view of a freshman senator seeking re-election. That is what I was charged with doing, and I regarded it with equal parts fascination and horror. On the one hand, it offered the ideal fund-raising, identity-building issue, perfect for national direct mail campaigns appealing to voters' fears about losing control of their country. On the other hand, it was a virtual certainty that the amendment would be interpreted by many people as divisive and exclusive.

Rather than make the proposed amendment a centerpiece of a re-election campaign, and thus thrust the idea into the most heated of political contexts, Don ultimately decided not to run. Other factors in his decision included his age and his frustration, not so much with the Senate but with the process of raising campaign funds and the brokering of power within his own party. Instead he searched for people who would support his idea without turning it into a vehicle for anti-immigrant agitation, and toward this end he spent the last years of his life.

The underlying idea of the amendment, I believe, sheds light on Don's basic belief: that to cooperate and to survive, we have to be able to talk to each other, that having a common language--or languages--can join us together.

Not every father and son have the chance to work closely together as adults. Don and I had that opportunity again about six years later, when I helped him prepare the fifth edition of Language in Thought and Action. Just as he wrote to explain things to his mother, I often write to say things as he might have said them. So working on his book was a strange and wonderful opportunity to explore his mind, rethink his thoughts with him, and try on his style. Perhaps nothing could have better prepared me for the world without him.

1994

Dauphin, Pennsylvania

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Introduction--by Wynne HayakawaSpoken at the Memorial Celebration for S. I. Hayakawa, Marin County Civic Center Auditorium, March 3, 1992. Videotape of the complete Memorial Celebration has been deposited with this oral history in The Bancroft Library.

I want to talk about my father's absorbing passion for art. It's a passion that I've shared with him, and I want to talk a little bit about it from a child's point of view.

Both my parents perceived, encouraged, and nurtured my interest in art. And Don gave me an important vision about art: not just that it's worthwhile, and not just that it's fun and exciting. It was the understanding of art as a continuous, ongoing, everyday activity. We artists call it work, and Don showed me how to work by example.

Don and I made art together. We painted together, drew together, carved wood together. He always made pencil and paper available to me in his office. I remember visiting Catherine Kuh, a curator of the Chicago Art Institute, and drawing while they talked.

In 1933, Don studied with Laslo Moholy-Nagy, a former member of the Bauhaus, recently come to teach in Chicago. Don never made a large body of visual work, but some of his studies are on view in the lobby.

In the forties, my parents started collecting art: first, Chinese and Japanese ceramics, then some modern works on paper. In the fifties, my father became fascinated by African art, and it was probably his greatest artistic passion. My exposure to African work was initially through him, and it influences my work today.

I almost don't recognize my father in these articles I've read lately about the "feisty professor." The man I grew up with, and saw only last Wednesday [voice breaking], was quiet and thoughtful. He was genial. He loved hearing personal stories of bellhops and waitresses. He was a good listener. But as a companion, he was also often content to pursue an activity quietly, without talking.

Yesterday, I was telling my brother Mark about one of my vivid memories of our father. Don used to let us kids join him when he bathed, so sometimes by the end of the bath when he let the water out, he hadthree small children slipping around in an empty bathtub. This became our favorite game, called Bobsled. Maybe it took my father back to the deep snows of Canada. All four of us would sit in the tub in a line, Don in back, calling out, "Left turn!" and we'd all slide to the left.

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"Right turn!" [laughter] We'd careen to the right. "Bump! bump! bump! Oh no! Here we go into the snowbank!" Total wild chaos.

My father was an affectionate and nonjudgmental parent and, as all of us up here today are saying, he was a lot of fun

March 1992

San Francisco, California

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S.I. Hayakawa -- An Estimation

Remarks by Warren Robbins at a celebration of Hayakawa's life and contributions March 3, 1992, Marin County Civic Center, San Rafael, CA

	I really thought
	that with all the fish Don ate,
	he would outlive us all,
	but it was not to be,

	And so we are gathered here
	to reminisce

	and to celebrate
	the rich life he lived
	that touched the lives
	of us all.

	In moments of stress or triumph
	(which sometimes go together)

	S.I. Hayakawa
	would (as all Californians know)
	don his Tam O'Shanter.

	Now today
	at this moment
	of stress for us,
	and triumph for him,

	I salute Don
	by donning
	this treasured Tam O'Shanter
	he once gave me.

	Actually it's the third one he gave me
	because he kept borrowing them back

	to give to some visitor
	who suddenly showed up;
	but he was always very good about replacing them.

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	For Don (or Sam) Hayakawa
	immortality will reside

	in the thoughts
	that his way of using language

	implanted in the minds
	and lives

	of countless numbers
	of individuals

	who encountered it
	in his writing and teaching.

	Nationally,
	he may be better known
	for his action

	as the public figure
	he became
	in state and federal politics

but that is transient notoriety.

It is as an educator

	a constant teacher
	throughout his life

	that his long-range impact
	will subtly reverberate
	in America's future.

	I firmly believe,
	as an educator myself,

	that Hayakawa's influence
	in American public education

	will someday be recognized
	as second only
	to that of John Dewey,

	America's foremost
	philosopher of education
	who advocated "learning by doing."

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	Hayakawa's contribution could perhaps
	be characterized as
	"learning by thinking."

	An exaggerated claim
	for Hayakawa's importance
	in American education, some might say,

motivated by devoted friendship.

Perhaps, but I don't think so.

	Hayakawa's influence
	has been pervasive

	in many less-than-obvious ways
	that I have perceived personally
	on countless occasions

	when I walked down the street with him
	not merely in California

	where his name became
	a household word,

	most often praised
	but sometimes derided.

	But in Washington
	and New York

	or in Palm Beach, Florida
	where I once
	aide-de-camped for him
	at one of his numerous speaking engagements.

	And I have never ceased to be amazed
	at how -- invariably --

	on almost every city block,
	wherever he went,

total strangers would come up to him

	not necessarily to seek the autograph
	of the political celebrity he had become,

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	but simply anxious to tell him
	that back in college or high school,
	many years previously,

they had read:

	Language in Action or
	Language in Thought and Action

	and of what a positive influence
	it had been upon them.

	They wanted him to know that
	and to thank him
	for the personal contribution
	he had made to their understanding
	and indeed to their lives.

	This happened all the time
	and if I had kept statistics
	I could have constructed
	a scientific sampling.

Hayakawa was a translator.

He translated ideas

	important for
	education in a democracy

	into language: comprehensible
	and sound,
	yet disarming in its simplicity.

	He did this in his books
	in his articles
	in his lectures
	in his personal conversations.

	He did this with perspicacity, reason, clarity,
	and not without humor.

This was his genius.

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	Thus he translated
	the difficult and sometimes combersome ideas
	and sentence structure
	of Alfred Korzybski's massive milestone work
	Science and Sanity
	so influential for our time
	into a meaningful essay
	for EVERYMAN.

	Hayakawa did this more effectively
	and for a far wider audience

	than such other distinguished
	popularizers of Science and Sanity

	as Stuart Chase
	Wendell Johnson
	Irving Lee
	Anatol Rappaport
	and a host of other able educators.

	One such person
	upon whose life's work
	Hayakawa had a fundamental impact

was myself:

	In 1951
	(41 years ago!),

I initiated a correspondence with him

	from Germany
	where I was stationed
	as a cultural attachè
	in the American Foreign Service

	inviting him
	to come and participate
	as a lecturer
	in the State Department's
	Cultural Exchange program.

	Not until 1959, however,
	did his freedom from academic commitments

	finally coincide with the availability to me
	of program funds,

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	enabling me to sponsor him
	in what proved to be
	a very successful lecture tour
	of German Universities.

	Then following my return to the U.S.
	in 1960,

	and thereafter,
	he took frequent occasion
	to visit Washington

	never presuming to think,
	at that time,
	that he would one day
	return to our nation's capital
	as a United States Senator.

	(He once declared to his colleagues:
	"I cannot believe that I,
	the son of Japanese immigrants,
	am standing here
	addressing you
	on the floor of the United States Senate.")

	Often, Hayakawa lectured
	(always without honorarium)

	in programs I was conducting
	on inter-racial communication

	so strongly did he believe
	in the need for better understanding
	between black and white Americans.

	Early on, Hayakawa had recognized
	the importance of African Art

	both culturally
	and aesthetically

	and he was among the principal influences
	that prompted me
	to establish what has now become
	the National Museum of African Art

	a branch of the
	Smithsonian Institution.

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	He was a founding trustee
	of that museum

	and an active mentor of mine
	throughout all the 41 years
	that I knew him.

	But more than that,
	by his quiet explication of ideas

	he educated me,
	a liberal Democrat,
	in many areas of political understanding.

	Yet he,
	a conservative Republican,
	was not beyond
	being educated by me

	in those areas
	where my own experience
	and political orientation
	might have had
	something to contribute to his.

	His discussion
	on the floor of the Senate
	on July 28, 1977

	was one of the most insightful explications
	of liberalism and conservativism
	that I have ever encountered,

	well worth reading
	by any student of political affairs

	or incorporating into an anthology
	of American political essays.

Hayakawa was a conciliator

	always with a fresh and different perspective
	to contribute
	to any discussion

	And his different way of seeing things
	enabled others
	to broaden their own perspective.

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	He liked me, I think,
	not merely because he believed,

	as one of his former Senate staff members
	flatteringly told me last week,

that I "had a good mind"

but because I told good jokes.

Original humor

usually very subtle

was very much a part of his mentality.

	Very mirthful, for me
	was the way he chuckled
	at his own jokes

	often before he finished
	telling them
	(and sometimes even before he began).

	He once remarked to me:
	"We are both doing God's work."
	"You in your way," he said
	And I in His."

I can go with that.

The poetic format for expository writing in which Warren Robbins' remarks are given here (sometimes referred to as "Cubist poetry") have been developed by him over a period of years, partly influenced by Hayakawa's own interest in the unorthodox modern poetry of e.e. cummings and others.

Robbins' intent is to provide to written text the dimension of oral intonation, allowing emphasis or subordination of ideas to be "heard" through their positioning on the page.

The format of vertical phraseology rather than conventional horizontal writing was originally utilized by Robbins in the preparation of lecture notes in which whole "idea blocks" could be encompassed by the eye at a glance, allowing for greater eye contact with the audience.

Cubist poetry adds the dimension of the spoken word to written text.

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Interview History--by Julie Gordon Shearer

In fall of 1988 the Regional Oral History Office received queries from historian Otis Graham of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Hugh Graham, a director of U.S. English, asking if we had recorded an oral history of Senator S. I. Hayakawa, the famous semanticist and former president of San Francisco State College (later University). Indeed, we had not; nor had any other oral history program done so, including the U.S. Senate Historical Office. We determined to remedy this oversight. U.S. English agreed to provide startup funding.

Initially, the Board of Directors of U.S. English was interested in documenting only the senator's activities as co-founder and honorary chairman of the organization. But The Bancroft Library successfully urged a broader focus to include the senator's life and career to better serve future researchers. So, with seed money from U.S. English, encouragement from U.S. English board chairman Stanley Diamond, and a pledge to help raise additional money to fund a full life history, interviewing began in March 1989. As a former journalist in Hayakawa's home town of Mill Valley, and having interviewed his father on a visit to California in the early sixties, I was given the plum assignment of interviewing the former senator.

The prospect of interviewing S. I. Hayakawa intrigued me personally as well as professionally. By the early sixties, some twenty years after his Language in Action became a Book-of-the-Month-Club best seller, the influence of the noted semanticist had seeped thoroughly into the fabric of society. My father had urged me to read the current edition of Hayakawa's book, Language in Thought and Action, the only book I remember my father commending to me as an adult.

I know why the book had appealed to my father--he took particular pleasure in the precise communication that English affords. And he found a ready ally in Hayakawa, who viewed the loose practices of advertisers with skepticism. Never mind that my father was actually a member of that scoundrel fraternity--an advertising man--Hayakawa validated his better instincts. "`Bosco Tastes Better!"' my father would quote with disgust. "Better than what? Sawdust?" Or another of his peeves--"`Winstons Taste Good Like a Cigarette Should.' It should be as," he would mutter. "`as a cigarette should.' I can't believe they're getting away with that."

Hayakawa's book impressed me, too. But for different reasons. Hayakawa clearly demonstrated the need to detach abstract, limiting labels from real people, in order to explode stereotypes and make communication possible. He offered practical examples whose inexorable logic rendered racial prejudice silly. It was liberating to be offered such a humane operating theory with which to judge experience.

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Later, in 1968, I struggled to fit my experience of Hayakawa, the semanticist, with news reports of his actions as president of San Francisco State vis-à-vis the striking students and, still later, with some of the positions he took as senator. During those years, I had become acquainted with Mrs. Hayakawa's work on the board of directors of the Berkeley Co-op grocery stores and as editor of Pacific Horticulture. So when the possibility of interviewing Senator Hayakawa became a reality, I was eager to undertake the assignment.

The Interviews

All the interviews in this volume were tape recorded at the Hayakawa's Mill Valley home in Marin County, California. Starting March 15, 1989, the first eight interviews were conducted with Hayakawa and his wife, Margedant--or Marge, as she is called. Interviews nine and ten were with Hayakawa and the former U.S. English chairman, Stanley Diamond (June 21), and the senator's legislative director, Elvira Orly (July 5), respectively. After Hayakawa's death February 27, 1992, interviews were conducted with the Hayakawas' housekeeper, Daisy Roseborough (November 17, 1992), and Hayakawa's administrative aide, Jeanne Griffiths (January 27, 1993).

Senator Hayakawa was gracious and alert at eighty-two at a planning meeting in February of 1989. He welcomed the interviewer and ROHO's division head, Willa Baum, with evident pleasure at the prospect of the interview sessions. A small man, he was impeccably--even elegantly-- dressed, with a soft tweed jacket, silk tie and handkerchief that picked out subtle colors from the tweed, trousers with a knife crease, and highly polished loafers. Mrs. Hayakawa, tall and striking in a classic sweater and skirt and pearls, poured fragrant tea, which was to punctuate subsequent interview sessions. The interviewer proposed a list of interview topics covering childhood, education, academic career, art collecting, semantics, the Senate, and U.S. English, to which Hayakawa cheerfully agreed, "If I can remember all that."

Interview sessions took place at about two-week intervals and lasted about two hours, with a break for tea and coconut cookies. We met in the living room a little after 10 a.m., following Hayakawa's perusal of the morning's mail brought from the post office by Jeanne Griffiths. The volume of mail had fallen off in Hayakawa's retirement, but letters from friends and invitations to speak and contribute editorials continued from readers and supporters of his activities on behalf of U.S. English.

Hayakawa's doctors had required that he cut down his speaking schedule; he tired easily and his need for oxygen complicated traveling. Throughout the interviews, he wore a device that delivered oxygen to the nose from a long tube attached to a tank in his office downstairs. It did not seem to limit him; he moved gracefully and unself-consciously

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through the house, trailing the plastic line as he searched for books or art objects to illustrate his answers. He commented on it only once, in an aside, referring to it as "a damned nuisance."

Mrs. Hayakawa sat in during the first interview. She was reluctant to comment, but her husband found her participation stimulating. Generally, interviewing more than one person at a time presents problems; it is difficult for the transcriber to follow the various voices and very time consuming to sort out simultaneous remarks on the tape. Also, the presence of a spouse sometimes can be inhibiting. However, Hayakawa's delight in his wife's presence and their mutual respect and ease with each other were so clearly evident that the interviewer relaxed, too. The senator soon became Don, and Mrs. Hayakawa became Marge.

Marge became a welcome fixture in the interview sessions. She supplied many of the details in the information about their courtship and their early years together and, as would be expected, her family. Because of the extraordinary partnership the couple had enjoyed over the course of their fifty-plus year marriage, Marge was an observer or participant or discussant at most of the important junctures of her husband's life. Thus, she was frequently able to supply a word or name that refreshed Don's recall. She was increasingly helpful when the oxygen deficit apparently caused fading of Don's memory. The success of these eight joint interviews suggested the possibility of the joint interviews later conducted on the topics U.S. English and Senate term.

The Transcribing and Editing

Don spoke clearly, but very softly, into the microphone. Fatigue occasionally reduced his volume and softened his diction, so that the transcript was full of gaps where the transcriber could not hear his answers. The interviewer re-audited the tapes and edited the transcripts to fill in some blanks, but the Hayakawas faced a substantial task in reviewing the transcripts.

The first transcripts were sent to the Hayakawas for review in January 1990, just before the interviewer was hospitalized for major surgery. In March, Jeanne Griffiths reported that the Hayakawas were not in good health and had not started their review. She had offered help with the process but they were unwilling to delegate the task. She speculated that the stack of transcripts from twenty-four hours of tape recording was simply overwhelming when Don's energy was low and Marge was feeling ill.

Don and Marge, as professional editors, keenly felt an investment in the language of the transcript. Knowing this, and wary of the actuarial imperative operating against the Hayakawas, the interviewer suggested

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reviewing in conference. The Hayakawas agreed to this. For the next seven months, the interviewer met with the Hayakawas, when their health permitted, to read the transcript aloud and write in their changes by hand. Don proved more than a full partner in the editing sessions, supplying much of the missing language and correcting the interviewer's syntax. He did not always recall the details of what he had done in the past but, interestingly, he almost always remembered what he had said in the interview.

The transcripts of interviews with Stanley Diamond and Elvira Orly were sent to them for their approval, as described in their interview histories. Following Don's death, all transcripts were reviewed again by Marge and Jeanne Griffiths, including the interviews with Griffiths and Daisy Roseborough.

Selecting photographs from among the many albums and stacks of official and candid pictures turned out to be a challenging task, made much easier by the good help of Jeanne Griffiths.

I missed meeting the famous semanticist in the full flood of his powers, whom I recalled from the sixties. But there is much to be found in these interviews:

The teenaged member of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps;

The newspaper publisher's daughter, brought up to think for herself, who shocked her father with her choice of a husband;

The proponents of co-ops and cooperation across race and culture who drove across Chicago to shop at the co-op in the black neighborhood to build its patronage;

The accepting family, who enfolded their retarded son Mark, and shared what they had learned from him;

The fencer;

The columnist for a Negro newspaper, who promoted the power and beauty of African art to black and white readers decades before the black pride movement;

The college administrator called "racist" by members of the Black Students Union;

The circuit-riding English teacher driving the icy roads of Wisconsin in winter to reach farm youths, teaching them to cherish their own experiences and write what they know;

The English language advocate;

The indulgent father, who "slurped" his Jello to make his children laugh;

The disobedient, disloyal "son" of Alfred Korzybski;

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The "blue-collar professor," whose favorite students were first-generation college students, commuter students, and adult returnees at night classes at San Francisco State;

The Senatorial quipster and lecturer;

The published poet.

Acknowledgements

On behalf of future researchers, thanks are due U.S. English, which contributed funds to begin recording the Hayakawa oral history, and also Margedant Hayakawa, whose donation allowed us to complete the project. Thanks go to Stanley Diamond for his steadfast encouragement. To Jeanne Griffiths go thanks for her extraordinary kindness and efficient help throughout the project. Everyone should be so lucky as to have such a colleague. I thank Warren Robbins for sharing his files on Senator Hayakawa's efforts to improve race relations and promote appreciation of African art, and his Senate lectures on the distinctions between Democrats and Republicans, and for his reminiscence on Hayakawa in the form of a cubist poem. I am grateful to Alan and Wynne Hayakawa for their tender and revealing commentaries on their father.

I thank Marge and Don for showing me themselves. I will always remember Marge's vigilance in seeing that Don's every need was met, her unfailing tact and courtesy to him, her unforced encouragement, and her genuine enjoyment of her cherished husband.

In more than three years of interviews and editing sessions, I never heard Don complain or speak sharply to anyone. Nor did he display irritation when recall became difficult, although he was clearly aware of the ebbing of his memory. I will not forget his devotion to and respect for Marge, his lightning fast wit, his absolute lack of rancor for his critics, his delight in a joke, and his willingness to laugh at himself.

October 1994

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

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S. I. Hayakawa: Biographical Data

DR. SAMUEL ICHIYE HAYAKAWA, internationally renowned semanticist is a former United States Senator from California (1977-1983).

From 1983 onwards, Hayakawa has served as Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. He is Chairman of J.S. English, a national organization whose aim is to enact a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States.

BORN: July 18, 1906 in Vancouver, Canada. Naturalized U.S. citizen.

EDUCATION: B.A. English, University of Manitoba, Canada, 1927. M.A. English, McGill University, Montreal, Canada, 1928. Ph.D.English and American Literature, University of Wisconsin, 1935

TEACHING: Instructor in English, University of Wisconsin Extension, 1936-39. Associate Professor of English, Illinois Institute of Technology, 1939-47. Lecturer, University of Chicago, 1950-55. Professor of English, San Francisco State College, 1955-68. President, San Francisco State College, 1968. (Later University). President Emeritus San Francisco State University, 1973 --.

BOOKS: Oliver Wendell Holmes: Selected Poetry and Prose, with Critical Introduction, 1939. Language in Action, 1941, Book-of-the-Month Club selection. (Translated into German, Swedish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Finnish, Japanese, Chinese and Korean). Language in Thought and Action, 1949, 4th Edition 1978. Language, Meaning and Maturity, 1954. Our Language and Our World, 1959. The Use and Misuse of Language, 1962. Symbol, Status and Personality, 1963. (Translated into Swedish, German, Japanese and Spanish). Through the Communication Barrier, 1979. (Translated into German, Japanese and Chinese). Funk and Wagnalls' Modern Guide to Synonyms, 1968, also published as Use the Right Word: A Modern Guide to Synonyms, Reader's Digest Books, republished as Choose the Right Word, Harper & Row, 1987.

COLUMNIST: Chicago Defender (weekly), 1942-47. Register and Tribune Syndicate (weekly) 1970-76.

HONORS: Fellow, American Psychological Association; American Association for Advancement of Science; National Americanism Medal, D.A.R.1987 Honorary Degrees: California College of Arts and Crafts, D.F.A.; Grinnell College, D.Litt.; Pepperdine University, L.H.D.; The Citadel, LL.D.; Johnson and Wales College, LL.D.

FAMILY: Married Margedant Peters. Three children: Alan, Mark and Wynne.

RESIDENCE: Mill Valley (Marin County) California.

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I Family and Childhood in Canada

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##This symbol (##) indicates that a tape or a segment of a tape has begun or ended. For a guide to the tapes see page following transcript.

Parents

Shearer

Can you tell me a little bit about your father, and how he came to be in the United States?

Hayakawa

At the time that my father was a young man--he was born in 1884, I think--Japan was well on the way to establishing itself as a Westernized, industrial nation. Japan was still busy taking ideas from the West, from Europe and America, and trying to catch up as an industrial nation. So Father was one of many, many hundreds of young men who came to the United States, or who went to France or England, to study and bring back those ideas to Japan.

Shearer

How old was he when he came?

Hayakawa

When he first came out, I think he must have been about eighteen. He worked as a houseboy in San Francisco and went to night school. He was very literary, even then. He used to translate English and American poetry for the Japanese language newspapers. One of his favorites was Edgar Allan Poe.

Shearer

Did he know English before he came to San Francisco?

Hayakawa

Yes. Well, he studied it quite hard when he was still a student in Japan in high school. Apparently, he must have taken it very seriously, because he was able to function in English when he got to San Francisco. And as I mentioned, he was translating Edgar Allan Poe into Japanese for the local Japanese language newspaper.

---

Shearer

Was this [English language study] the custom among children of families of a higher social class, or was this universal?

Hayakawa

I don't know to what extent, but probably it was widespread. But, you know, for all sorts of ambitious young men at that time, they either studied in America or England or France or Italy, because the Japanese were highly conscious of having been a closed empire for so long and avoiding all contact with the outside world. They got into the twentieth century with those barriers removed, and they went all over the place to study, to bring back ideas for Japan, to study railroad systems, streetcar systems, telegraph systems--everything else--and Father was part of that exodus, made of people who came out to New York or Paris or London, wherever they came to. So many of them were there specifically to learn something about the West in order to bring back that information to Japan. Some of them were interested in improving the railroad system, or to have a railroad system at all [laughs], and so on, for many, many aspects of culture. Father was part of that exodus. [pause] What's that one?

Shearer

Well, this is--Mrs. Hayakawa just handed me an article.

Hayakawa

Where does that appear?

Shearer

Let's see--

Mrs. Hayakawa

This is an article about your father when he was here in Mill Valley, they interviewed him.

Shearer

Actually, it looks as though he was interviewed about you.

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. Yes, I was a very good boy. [laughs] Where did this come from? San Francisco State--oh, the Phoenix. That's the student newspaper at San Francisco. "S.I. Hayakawa: My Son Was a Very Good Boy."

Shearer

Dated--

Hayakawa

It's dated, yes, March 11, 1971. My goodness, Father was eighty-seven when this interview took place.

Shearer

When did he die?

Mrs. Hayakawa

When he was ninety-two.

Hayakawa

Was it ninety-two? Something like that. It was five years after this interview took place.

---

[interruption]

Shearer

Do you mind reading that sentence again? That really was quite revealing. This is the interview with your father.

Hayakawa

Yes. He was interviewed by the student newspaper, the Phoenix, at San Francisco State. [reads] "What was San Francisco like in those days?" "Oh, the Japanese and Chinese were called `Jap' and `Chink' and discrimination was very high. You couldn't walk out alone at night; otherwise, you'd be knocked down by white people."

Shearer

Oh, my. And this is when he was first in San Francisco?

Hayakawa

Yes, that's before he was married. [continues reading] "Where did you go to school?" "Somewhere in Palo Alto. Also, I worked on Goat Island, on USS Pensacola." That's what's called Treasure Island now. "I was enlisted in the United States Navy and got discharged and went back to Japan. Then I came back to Vancouver with my wife. I met some friends. They all said, `Canada's a new country. There are many chances. You'd better stay.' So I decided to stay."

Shearer

Actually, I'd like to back up a little bit, and ask you to tell me for the tape recorder the story of how your father came to Canada with his new bride.

Hayakawa

Well, after he'd been in San Francisco, and apparently felt himself financially secure enough to get married and go to Japan and fetch his bride and so on--. Well, my father was always sort of a dandy in his dress, and when he went to Japan to pick up his bride, he got her an elaborate set of Western clothing. They came over together first class in a ship. You know, immigrants don't come first class, but Father had married way above himself socially. So he felt that his wife had to come over in style.

Shearer

How was that possible? How did that come about, that he was able to claim this bride of higher social standing?

Hayakawa

Well, they had been good friends in high school, and from her father's point of view--he was a physician, and he had studied medicine out of German textbooks after he ran out of what traditional Japanese medicine had taught him. So he had a respect for the West, too. When Father came to ask her hand in marriage, and so on, apparently the old doctor [Isono] thought this was a suitable marriage, because he [my father] was so ambitious, he'd been to America, he spoke English. They had a

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great future. So my maternal grandfather then gave his consent to the marriage.

Father, who likes to do things in style, having married way above himself socially, you see, got her a great, great outfit--wonderful clothing--and brought her over first class, which wasn't a good idea to start with, because he was well-dressed, and she was well-dressed. Apparently, the immigration authorities thought that he was a pimp.

Shearer

Oh, dear.

Hayakawa

Bringing this pretty young girl over to America on pretense of marriage, and intending to put her into a whore house. [laughs]

Shearer

What a horrible dampening experience that must have been!

Hayakawa

I don't know who told me this; I think Mother did, eventually. But whatever it is, immigrants don't come over first class. But he had reacted to the fact that he was marrying above himself and wanted to do it in style. The immigration authorities couldn't believe that it was just an ordinary guy with his wife, coming over to lead the ordinary kind of life. So they held the ship, and they got off at Vancouver. The ship went on to San Francisco where they were going, and Father and my mother were kept there [in Vancouver] while they were trying to get into the United States. The Japanese consul there took a great interest in the couple and saw that my mother was not just a working-class woman but was well-educated. And so the consul took a great interest in her, and in my father, too.

Apparently, it was their kindness that persuaded my parents not to go on to San Francisco, but to stay right there in Vancouver. That's why I was born there.

Shearer

And the consul continued to be a friend?

Hayakawa

Well, I don't know what came after that, because I think I was born in Vancouver, but we moved out to Calgary and other parts of Canada as time went on.

Shearer

You said you learned of this story from your mother.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

When did she tell you?

Hayakawa

Oh, goodness. It seems as if I've always known it.

---

Shearer

It seems your father was a proud and ambitious man. I have read that to be dishonored and humiliated is a terrible social tragedy for the Japanese.

Hayakawa

Well, it depends what the situation is. If he'd been put into a humiliating situation by another Japanese, he would have to take his revenge, or something. But here you are dealing with a new country, a foreign country, so I guess he put up with it. Well, there wasn't a hell of a lot to put up with. It was just that there was some problem after the ship stopped in Vancouver, of where to go from there, because he wanted to get back to San Francisco. It was during that time he found a job in Vancouver. That's why I happened to be a Canadian.

Shearer

Just for the record, can you give his full name, and--

Hayakawa

Yes, Ichiro.

Shearer

And your mother's name?

Hayakawa

Tora.

Shearer

And her maiden name?

Hayakawa

Isono. She was a daughter of a physician.

Shearer

What was the social position of the physician?

Hayakawa

Pretty good. I know this because of something that happened when Mother took me and my brother, when we were five and three at the time, to Japan for a visit with Grandfather. That's the only time I ever saw him. But something happened.

Shearer

This is her father?

Hayakawa

Her father, yes. Something happened at that time that I've always remembered. My brother Fred had his heel run over by a cart--didn't break any bones or anything like that. It was just a superficial injury--hurt like hell, of course. My brother and I were both wearing Western clothes, which was quite unusual for a small child in Japan. And so, the poor man who was pulling a cart or something of the kind, and ran over my brother's heel, was just terrified. He'd hit one of the aristocracy, it looked like. And he carried Fred into my grandfather's office, just terribly frightened of having hurt the small child of this very, very distinguished grandfather.

The injury was not very serious, because he never had to think about it again. But I still remember that poor puller of

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this cart. He was just absolutely humiliated and frightened to death, because he'd hurt this little boy who, by his European clothes--Western clothes--was obviously the grandchild of somebody very, very important in the world. [laughs] He was scared stiff.

Shearer

But your grandfather allayed his fears?

Hayakawa

Yes, I guess so. I don't remember what happened after that.

Siblings

Shearer

What is Fred's full name, your brother?

Hayakawa

Fred Jun.

Shearer

What is the complete spelling of your name? Is there a Western aspect to your first names--S.I.?

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

I've heard you called Sam, but that I take to be--

Hayakawa

Yes, that's correct. I'm named Samuel, after Samuel Johnson, I think, because my father was such a nut on the English language.

Shearer

You have two sisters as well? What are their names?

Hayakawa

Yes. One is Mrs. Ruth Braley. She's separated, I guess divorced, from Mr. Braley long ago, and she lives in Troy, Michigan.

Shearer

How many years younger is she than you?

Hayakawa

I would say somewhere around six or eight.

Shearer

So she was born after Fred.

Hayakawa

Yes. Fred's two years younger than I. Then, there was a longer gap between Fred and Ruth, so I would say six or seven years.

Voice

Her Japanese name is Emiko, right?

Hayakawa

That's Grace. Ruth's Japanese name is Toshiko.

---

More on Father and Mother

Shearer

Your father was such a polished and eloquent speaker of English, but I gather your mother did not learn English so readily.

Hayakawa

Not very well, no.

Shearer

Why was this, do you think?

Hayakawa

Well, I would say that Father had lived in San Francisco before he married, and as a businessman in Vancouver, Calgary, and Winnipeg, he had to speak English all day long. Mothers don't have to do that. They stay home with the babies, including me. [laughs] So Mother's English never got to be very good, but Father spoke very, very well. Not only that, he read a hell of a lot of English literature.

Shearer

And he pursued the Edgar Allan Poe and Alexander Dumas--

Hayakawa

Yes. And Rudyard Kipling. Charles Dickens.

Shearer

Of course, you had the books then in your house?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes, we had a lot of books. That's something I'd forgotten. This is about my father. He used to have a job as a mess attendant on the USS Pensacola, when he was stationed at Goat Island. That's now Yerba Buena Island. He remembers being paid $25 a month in five-dollar gold pieces, and going into San Francisco to celebrate. His celebrations were quite intellectual: he went to the office of a Japanese language newspaper, Shin Sekai, which translates into New World, to which he was a contributor.

Father used to publish translations into Japanese of selections from Emerson's essays [laughs], and Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake. He was especially proud of his Japanese version from the English of Heine's Die Lorelei.

Shearer

I can remember learning that in German.

Hayakawa

[laughs] It says next, "Unfortunately, the files of Shin Sekai were lost shortly thereafter in the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906" [quoting from the Phoenix, May 11, 1971].

[interruption]

Shearer

Now, what you were just reading to me about your father's work in San Francisco just before the 1906 earthquake, that was before his marriage. Is that correct?

---

Hayakawa

Yes.

Recalling Vancouver and Calgary

Shearer

So now, coming back to Vancouver where you were born, and where your father and mother stayed for a while, what was the work that your father did when your parents were living in Vancouver?

Hayakawa

Well, as one of the very few English-speaking Japanese in Vancouver at the time, he used to be interpreter and translator for Japanese workmen who didn't speak English, who were suing for back wages or getting into trouble with the law, or whatever. So he was a friend of the working man, the Japanese working man who would be hired as cheap labor and often be gypped. Or at least that's what Father felt that his job was, to help them not get gypped.

Shearer

I remember that you said that they had encountered friends in Vancouver. Did that mean other Japanese?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

But they were not necessarily of the same class, or were they just not English-speaking?

Hayakawa

Well, there's several levels to this. Among the friends was the local consul from Japan, and his educated family, and they recognized my mother right away as being from the educated classes in Japan. So the consul's family took a very friendly interest, especially in my mother.

Shearer

What identified her as being from the higher social class? Her manner of speaking?

Hayakawa

I suppose.

Mrs. Hayakawa

She never lost that air of being a lady. She was very nice, very sweet, very gentle. Underneath that gentle exterior, she was a very strong person.

Hayakawa

She came and visited me in the United States Senate, wearing a Japanese costume, kimono and everything. She made a big, big hit, and Senator [Howard] Baker, who was our party leader at that time in the Senate, had a reception for her. [laughs]

Shearer

She felt very much at home in the Senate?

---

Hayakawa

Yes. This was in Carter's administration.

Shearer

Did she meet the president?

Hayakawa

Yes. We have a photograph of her meeting President Carter, somewhere.

Shearer

I hope that we can add that to the collection of possible photographs to be included. I do not have the first name of her father, the physician.

Hayakawa

I don't know either. I have no idea.

Shearer

When did you move from Vancouver to Calgary?

Hayakawa

It must have been 1911 or 1912, because I started school--oh, from Vancouver to Calgary? Let me see. [pauses] That must have been about 1913.

Shearer

So you were about seven years old.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

By that time, your brother Fred was born, but not--

Hayakawa

Not the sisters.

Shearer

I don't know Canada. Was Calgary a big leap from Vancouver?

Hayakawa

No. Actually, as far as size of cities were concerned, it was a downward leap, smaller. But Calgary was, in Canadian terms at least, an important city, because it was the center of all the excitement, all the selling and buying of shares having to do with the oil industry. People were striking oil and quickly printing up lots of shares to sell to the general public. Then they'd go broke, and ultimately people would paper their walls with bum shares. [laughter]

It was an exciting place. Have you ever heard of the Calgary Stampede?

Shearer

Oh, yes, I have.

Hayakawa

Well, it was on when I was there. All the cowpunchers from the West would come to compete.

Shearer

What did your father do there?

---

Hayakawa

Had a grocery store.

Shearer

One thing I neglected to ask you about Vancouver was, where in Vancouver did you live? Was there a section of town--

Hayakawa

There was a Japan Town. There still is.

Shearer

Did you also have non-Japanese friends?

Hayakawa

Well, I did, and my father probably did in his business relationships. My mother had very few friends who were not Japanese in those days, because her English was so limited. Later on in Winnipeg, she got some friends other than Japanese: one, because there were no Japanese in Winnipeg and, two, because she had learned some English.

Shearer

So the move to Calgary, did that change the social situation? Was there a Japan Town?

Hayakawa

No, there weren't enough Japanese there to be a Japan Town.

Shearer

And so the groceries that your father stocked in his store were not traditional Japanese--

Hayakawa

No, no. It was an ordinary grocery store.

Schooling

Shearer

And you, at that point, were going to primary school?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Were you the only child in your class of Japanese ancestry?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

How did that feel? Were you accepted, did you notice any difference--?

Hayakawa

No. [laughs] I never even thought about it.

Shearer

Did anybody else, as far as you knew?

Hayakawa

Well, if they did, they didn't tell me about it.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

At one point, you told me that the children, the girls particularly, they almost made a toy out of you--

Hayakawa

[laughs] Yes, that was when I was about in the first or second grade. The girls my age--also six and seven--treated me like the cutest little Japanese doll they'd ever seen. [laughs]

Shearer

This was because of your stature at that point, or they just thought you were an awfully cute fellow?

Hayakawa

I remember when I was in the second grade in Calgary, these pretty girls would compete for the privilege of carrying me. Two cute girls would pick me up and hold me between them, lug me around. They treated me like a Japanese doll.

Shearer

How big was the school? How many kids were there?

Hayakawa

Oh, goodness, I don't remember. It was a neighborhood public school.

##

Shearer

Do you remember the name of the school in Calgary, where you started?

Hayakawa

No, I really don't. I remember one, Haultain.

Shearer

And this was in Calgary?

Hayakawa

Yes. That was where I spent the second grade. And the third grade I spent in Victoria School.

Shearer

Did you like school?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes.

Shearer

How did you get on with the teachers?

Hayakawa

Just fine.

Shearer

Was there any one teacher or class or year in school that particularly stands out for you?

Hayakawa

No, not really. Wait, there was one, Miss MacPherson, who was especially mean to me. [laughter] She was a damn racist. That was in about the third grade. You get past that very quickly.

Shearer

Did you reach some kind of an accommodation with her in the course of the year, or was she consistently unpleasant?

---

Hayakawa

I don't remember her being pleasant at all. But then, it was a large class, about thirty-five or forty in the class. Teacher had not enough time to divide to be especially mean to any one of the kids. [laughs]

Shearer

I gather your mother did not work outside the home.

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

So, was she--I gather that you might have been one of the main sources of information--

Hayakawa

Companionship--

Shearer

--and companionship.

Hayakawa

Yes. In Calgary, for example, there was only one other Japanese family. They were a real comfort to her. But that's all the Japanese company there was.

Shearer

Were you expected to excel in school, to achieve and get good grades?

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

Not that you were aware of. How about behavior, deportment?

Hayakawa

I was never a problem.

Shearer

What about your little brother?

Hayakawa

I don't think he was, either.

Shearer

I assume your sisters also went to school at the same school?

Hayakawa

Yes, they came along later. They didn't start going to school until we were in Winnipeg.

Shearer

I just want to be sure that I get everybody's name. Now, the youngest child was Grace. Is that right?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

And she's Emiko.

Hayakawa

Yes. And the next older is Ruth, Toshiko.

Shearer

Does Grace have a married name, also?

---

Hayakawa

She still uses Hayakawa. I think her marriage had broken up long ago.

Shearer

How did you occupy your place among the children, as first son? Is that a special niche for you in the family?

Hayakawa

No, nobody made a fuss about it.

Shearer

What about sons versus daughters?

Hayakawa

Well, the difference in age was so great that my first sister came along after I was eight or ten years old, so there would be no rivalry for position there.

Shearer

Were the expectations different for the boys in the family as opposed to the girls? This perhaps wouldn't have been evident until maybe a little later.

Hayakawa

No, it wasn't evident at all. That is, my sisters were taken off to Japan to live permanently.

Parents and Sisters Return to Japan

Shearer

How old were they at the time they returned to Japan?

Hayakawa

I think Ruth was about eight or nine, and Grace was two or three years younger. Grace was young enough to learn Japanese and forget most of her English. Even now that she's grown up, she speaks English with a Japanese accent. But Ruth was a little older, and she learned Japanese when she got to Japan, too. She had to. But she clung to her English and would read an English book before going to sleep at night.

Shearer

Why did your parents go back to Japan?

Hayakawa

Well, because Father established a headquarters in Osaka, from which he'd do some exporting, instead of staying in Winnipeg and importing. By that time, he had attained a certain international clientele of people to whom he sold merchandise, Japanese toys and hardware and junk of all kinds, which he sent to South America, Mexico, Africa, all places.

Shearer

So this was after the First World War?

Hayakawa

Yes.

---

Shearer

About 1920?

Hayakawa

Anyway, when I graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1926, my parents were already gone.

Shearer

They left when you were eighteen, is that right?

Hayakawa

I don't know. A little older than that.

Shearer

Were you finished high school by the time they left?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Where did you stay? How did you live--?

Hayakawa

Oh! That's another lovely story. I had two close friends, Gerard and Carlyle Allison, and they had a little sister, Mary Josephine. Well, when Father established his head offices in Osaka, and Mother and my sisters were taken along afterwards to stay with him, I moved in with the Allisons.

Shearer

Why didn't you go back with your parents?

Hayakawa

Because I didn't speak enough Japanese, to start with, and I was just on the verge of getting my B.A. at University of Manitoba. And Fred went to Montreal, where he lived with my uncle and his English wife.

Shearer

So your parents essentially went back for business reasons so that your father's business could be enhanced.

Hayakawa

Yes. And also, they were there to stay, because they never came back.

Shearer

Did that surprise you, or did you sort of assume when they left that that was going to be a permanent move?

Hayakawa

I don't remember what I thought about it at the time.

Shearer

By that time you were out of the home, you were kind of on your own?

Hayakawa

Yes. Sort of. I had enough Canadian friends so that I wasn't going to miss my parents.

Shearer

Yes. Going back a few years into high school, where did you go to high school?

---

Hayakawa

I went to St. John's High School in Winnipeg, but I've forgotten for what reason, but Fred went to the Isaac Newton High School. I think that was the name of it.

Shearer

Was St. John's a parochial--?

Hayakawa

No, no. It was just a public high school like the other one. I think there were three or four major high schools in Winnipeg at that time: St. John's, Kelvin, Isaac Newton. My brother went to one of those, I went to St. John's, but my brother went to one of the others. These are all public high schools.

Shearer

A lot of films made these days--and of course designed for a teenage audience--depict high school culture, whether idealized or fanciful or realistic. What do you recall about your high school culture? Who were the people who mattered in high school, the really popular people?

Hayakawa

Well, first of all, the great important difference between high schools as I see them today and high schools I experienced is that the high school kids in Canada were very, very much younger. That is, they were younger in social behavior. High school kids here, particularly when they get to be juniors or seniors, start behaving more and more like adults, and getting girls pregnant and things like that.

Shearer

I see. So not necessarily mature behavior, but--

Hayakawa

But certainly grown-up behavior. Now, so far as boy-girl relationships were concerned, when I was in high school, even when I was a senior in high school, there was nothing going on that was of any significance whatsoever that one could detect. We were all very shy with each other. When we were compelled to dance with each other, we were overcome with embarrassment.

Shearer

So there was the same diversion, girls to one side of the room, boys to the other side of the room at the beginning of the dance--

Hayakawa

Yes, that sort of thing. We didn't have dances very often, either. But when I read about high school kids today, they're socially so much more mature, although their algebra isn't as good. [laughs]

Shearer

This high school being in Winnipeg, can you characterize Winnipeg a little bit?

Hayakawa

Yes. Well, the Canadians call it the gateway to the West. That is, if you're going west, it's the first big, big city that's a

---

western city that you go through before you get to Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, and so on. So, from the point of view of the distribution of merchandise and the change of transportation back and forth, Winnipeg is a trade center.

That's why Father settled his import office in Winnipeg, because you had practically the rest of western Canada as your territory.

Shearer

So, did that represent a step up for him, an enhanced business opportunity?

Hayakawa

Well, it was supposed to. [laughs] I didn't notice him becoming a millionaire, though.

Shearer

High school is often considered a formative time in a young person's life. Was it so for you?

Hayakawa

Yes, very, very much so.

[interruption]

Canadian Machine Gun Corps

Shearer

Now we're back on track. You were just telling me about what might have been a formative experience for you in high school.

Hayakawa

High school was a very, very good experience for me. I did well in my studies, and I enjoyed them very, very much. There isn't a teacher I had for whom I didn't have a high respect. Combined with that is the fact that, as I was approaching the age of eighteen, nineteen, I joined a militia regiment.

Shearer

Oh, really? What does that mean? Is that like ROTC [Reserve Officers Training Corps]?

Hayakawa

No, it's different from ROTC. What's the militia in this country, anyway? National Guard? Yes. It was called the First Squadron Canadian Machine Gun Corps. And so I avoided university ROTC altogether, because I was in this from high school days on.

Shearer

What did you do as a member of this unit?

Hayakawa

I learned how to operate a machine gun. [laughs]

---

Shearer

What was the rationale for having this home guard, and having them so heavily armed?

Hayakawa

Well, a machine gun is not heavily armed. No. It's just an ordinary, routine, warlike weapon. We had--this is a very funny thing--what we had is something that probably doesn't exist anymore, and which probably hasn't existed for forty years or more. But it was First Squadron Canadian Machine Gun Corps. And it was a squadron because it was a cavalry regiment. In three or four years with that unit, I rode a horse once. [laughter] Scared to death!

Shearer

Were you armed as you were riding? I think that would be a little alarming.

Hayakawa

I think the machine guns were carried on a separate horse. You dismounted, and you rushed forward with your machine guns and yourself, the horses were tied to a tree back there somewhere--I've forgotten what's all involved. But it's a form of military organization that disappeared not long thereafter, in favor of tanks and motor vehicles. It was a cavalry machine gun corps, but it was a city operation, and so we got to ride only about once a year. But we were by definition cavalry, and we wore spurs.

Shearer

Did you ride in any parades? Did you have an annual armed forces parade?

Hayakawa

I think they did that once or twice. [laughs] I remember--this is in the 1920s, you understand--the world was at peace at the time. I remember my fellow members of that machine gun squadron, how terribly much they yearned to have a war! [laughs] And there were some disturbances going on around Turkey or something like that, and all my friends got all excited--"Hey, maybe they're going to send us to Turkey!"

Shearer

Were you or your comrades actually looking forward to--?

Hayakawa

Well, some of them were, of course.

Shearer

How about you?

Hayakawa

No, I was perfectly happy to stay where I was. I hadn't finished college yet.

Shearer

Speaking of parades, and celebrations and so forth, what kind of family celebrations did you have? Did you celebrate Christmas, did you celebrate Buddha's birthday, did you--

---

Hayakawa

Yes [to Christmas]--no, I don't know when Buddha's birthday is, if he had one.

Shearer

The Zen Center celebrates such a thing, and I confess that I can't remember when it's supposed to be.

Hayakawa

Father wasn't enough of a Buddhist, and Mother was Christian. We observed Easter and Christmas, and so on. But I don't know that we ever observed a national Japanese holiday, except New Year's Day, which we celebrate with the rest of the world. There was always special Japanese foods that are served only at New Year's time, which we had every year. But that was not religious, particularly.

Shearer

Your mother being Christian, I gather that Easter might have been a celebrated--

Hayakawa

Well, we observed it, but I don't know that we celebrated it.

Shearer

I guess the degree of celebration waxes and wanes in the generations. So, religious or national celebrations did not set you apart in any way from the rest of the kids you were going to school with?

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

Did you attend any religious services?

Hayakawa

I went to Methodist Sunday school very early and also throughout high school. Especially from the ages of seven to ten, I liked Sunday school very much. This was in Winnipeg.

Mrs. Hayakawa

That was another bond between us. I, too, went very early.

Shearer

What did you enjoy?

Hayakawa

The singing. So many of the hymns we used to sing still go through my head: "We Shall Gather at the River," "Onward, Christian Soldiers," "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know," "When He Cometh, When He Cometh, to Pick Up His Precious Jewels," "Like the Bright Star of Morning, His Crown Adorning."

Mrs. Hayakawa

It satisfies a need for poetry in those early years. I was the one in school told not to sing.

---

High School Days with the Allisons

Shearer

Did you have any high school romances?

Hayakawa

No. In fact, I was saying a little earlier that high school kids in my period in Canada, in the first place, they were all on the average a year younger than here, because there are only three years of high school in Canada. So you got out at grade eleven, not grade twelve, as in this country. When you're finished, you're finished with high school. So we all went in as freshmen in college one year younger than the average freshman in college in this country.

Shearer

So you entered college often at seventeen, or I suppose if you were especially adept, advanced, sixteen.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Did you enjoy staying with this family, the Allisons?

Hayakawa

I enjoyed it so much I'm still in touch with them. Papa and Mama are dead long ago, but their--they had three children, two boys and a girl. I just talked within the last couple of days to one of the boys, who is long, long retired and quite ill. We're still in touch. And the daughter, I was also on the phone with her a few days ago.

Shearer

How long did you live with them?

Hayakawa

About two years.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Your nickname was Hak, then.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Your nickname was Hak? Why was that?

Hayakawa

Short for Hayakawa. [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

They still call him Hak.

Shearer

How did you stay in touch with your parents when they were gone? Did you write a lot?

Hayakawa

Not a lot. Mother didn't ever write to me directly. Every now and then, my sister Ruth would, because she's the one who remained bilingual all the way through. She was eight or nine when she made the move. My other sister was younger, and lost

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her English as soon as she got there. But Ruth hung on to both languages.

Shearer

And you never learned Japanese, or just not so well that you felt comfortable?

Hayakawa

Well, I can speak conversational Japanese. I can't read and write.

Shearer

Was that a factor in your wanting to stay in Canada?

Hayakawa

Wanting to stay? Oh, there wasn't a question of going! My parents simply accepted the fact that neither of us--my brother and I--wanted to go back. Neither of us was brought up to be Japanese. So they left us behind. And they were very happy that my brother went to live with an uncle and his wife in Montreal, and I stayed with the Allisons. It amazes me to think of it, that I was just talking the last two days with Mary Jo Allison.

Shearer

You know, other interviewees have reported the same thing. People they haven't heard from in years, once they begin this odyssey into the past, the connections keep being made.

When did your musical interests manifest themselves?

Hayakawa

Well, I must have been in high school or thereabouts, when I first started taking mandolin lessons.

Shearer

Really? I think that's remarkable. Mandolin was--well, it wasn't offered in school, was it? This was private lessons?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Was there also a music program in the school?

Hayakawa

Not a very serious one.

Shearer

How big was the high school?

Hayakawa

I don't remember the figures at all. Assuming that there are three years in high school, and about thirty to a class--I don't know. The whole city of Winnipeg had only three major high schools, and we were in one of them.

Shearer

What piqued your interest in the mandolin? I mean, how many mandolins could you have heard--?

---

Hayakawa

I don't remember exactly how it came about. I just don't remember at all.

Shearer

Did you continue to play the mandolin for very long?

Hayakawa

I don't play very often now, and haven't for many years, but I still can play--pick out tunes in it pretty easily.

Shearer

Had you opportunity then to hear jazz? Is that when your interest in jazz began?

Hayakawa

Well, it wasn't a very serious interest in jazz at that time. No, I went along with the crowd. When "Yes, Sir, That's My Baby" was a popular song, I knew how to play that, and so on.

Shearer

What was the crowd's taste in those days in music? What was everyone singing, listening to in those days? Each generation seems to sort of define itself by its music.

Hayakawa

"Yes, Sir, That's My Baby." [laughter] "My Blue Heaven." I'm always amazed at how many of those they still play.

Shearer

It's amazing how the show tunes become the standards, which then live on in jazz versions.

Hayakawa

Yes. "Missouri Waltz."

Shearer

Did people in your high school do a lot of singing, group singing?

Hayakawa

There may have been, but I wasn't involved in it. I don't know if we ever had a choir or chorus.

Shearer

How about assembly? Did people get up and perform? Were there school plays?

Hayakawa

No. We had a school play. We had a Shakespeare play every year.

Shearer

Did you participate?

Hayakawa

Yes. I remember we made A Midsummer Night's Dream. [laughs] I was the First Fairy. [laughter]

Shearer

And you were so listed in the program?

Hayakawa

I guess so.

Shearer

You must have been very good in English, liked English?

---

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Any sense of, appreciation of, or remembering the power of language and its usage? Did you do public speaking?

Hayakawa

Well, there wasn't much emphasis on public speaking, so far as the high school was concerned. But I do remember enjoying very much Longfellow, and in that environment of Winnipeg you had to appreciate Robert Burns.

Shearer

Were there occasions for recitations of these?

Hayakawa

No. These were just private enthusiasms. What's that great long narrative poem of Longfellow's?

Shearer

"By the Shores of Gitchy--"

Hayakawa

No, no. "This is the forest primeval--"

Shearer

"Evangeline"?

Hayakawa

That's it.

##

Shearer

One thing that I've noticed is very important to kids in high school these days is not only the music with which they identify, as sort of personal signatures or group generational signatures, but dress. Was this important?

Hayakawa

Not that I recall.

Shearer

What do you remember as the way everybody looked in the days in which you--

Hayakawa

Well, let me think. Almost all the way through high school, at that time, boys wore short pants, ones that come down to here. Long or dark pants didn't start until college.

Shearer

How about the girls?

Hayakawa

I don't remember an awful lot about the way they dressed. I'll say this: that about three years ago I was up in Winnipeg, and saw, among others, a whole bunch of high school kids. They all looked far more sophisticated and dressed in a far more sexy way, especially all the girls, than I would have seen in high school.

---

Shearer

Have they extended the high school program to four years?

Hayakawa

Not that I know of. Maybe they have, but I haven't inquired into that.

Shearer

At the point which you were in high school, which would have been when you were fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen--

Hayakawa

About that.

Shearer

Who were your heroes? Were there any? Either in the school or out of the school, in public life or the arts--

Hayakawa

I would say that one of my heroes was my high school Latin teacher, because besides being that, he was the commander of the militia unit I belonged to. I did enjoy the militia.

Shearer

What was it that recommended your commander to you, his manner of dealing with the boys?

Hayakawa

Yes. He was a very quiet little guy, who had an air of military authority, but never raised his voice.

Shearer

And he was actually small of stature?

Hayakawa

Yes. He was our Latin teacher.

Shearer

You mentioned earlier that in the second grade, the girls carried you around because you were such a cute little doll-like person.

Hayakawa

[laughs] That didn't carry on much longer, beyond the second grade.

Shearer

Were you shorter than many of the other boys?

Hayakawa

Oh, I'm sure I was.

Shearer

Was that anything you particularly noticed as a child?

Hayakawa

When our high school class had an ice hockey team, I was their mascot.

Shearer

But you did skate?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

What about other winter sports--skiing, tobogganing?

---

Hayakawa

Mostly skating.

Shearer

I think I remember you were mentioning fishing at one point. Is that a love of yours?

Hayakawa

Yes, it is, but that hit me more after I came to California than before.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You did some hunting.

Hayakawa

Yes, we did a little.

Shearer

By the time you were nearing the end of high school, where were you looking for further academic schooling?

Hayakawa

St. John's High School.

Shearer

Did you have a sense of where you would go after that?

Hayakawa

Yes, University of Manitoba.

Shearer

Were you encouraged to go there, or did that seem like a good idea to you, or--?

Hayakawa

Well, there were never any alternatives, because the University of Manitoba is the place you go to without having to pay room and board somewhere else far from home.

Shearer

How did you keep yourself supported? Did you have jobs?

Hayakawa

Well, I was at home.

Shearer

But after your parents left, then did you work or did they help support you?

Hayakawa

I always worked, long before high school days. I had lots of jobs. I worked for Liggett's Drug Store in an odd way. Have I told you about that?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Photo finishing department?

Hayakawa

Photo finishing department.

Shearer

No, you have not told me about that.

Hayakawa

You go from drugstore to drugstore of Liggett's and pick up the films that people have left there to be made into snapshots, and I'd go on my bicycle from one Liggett Drugstore to another to

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the photo finishing plant, where they'd develop the films and make all the prints. Then I'd take them back to the drugstores.

Shearer

So this was an outdoor job.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

This was mainly during high school, or was this before?

Hayakawa

That was pretty much during high school, I think. It may have started before then.

Shearer

Did you work in your father's grocery?

Hayakawa

No, Father was out of the grocery business after we left Calgary. He was in the import-export business by that time.

Shearer

So, when you were in college, how did you support yourself?

Hayakawa

I had jobs during the summer. I remember working for a used tractor company. [laughs] A great big hulking guy owned the tractor company, and he was almost illiterate. I was in high school at the time. I remember what it meant to be his secretary, see. After the first few days, he stopped dictating letters to me. He would say something like, "Tell `em we ain't got none of those." [laughs] "Tell 'em to pay up or we'll sue." And then I'd put it into the proper language, and he'd be tickled to death.

Shearer

He knew enough to know that he wasn't saying it properly?

Hayakawa

That's right.

Shearer

And he could see it on the page, what you had done?

Hayakawa

Right.

Mrs. Hayakawa

And you took shorthand.

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. Well, that's something I did. What I did in high school, I learned shorthand and typing. I think I took an extra year in high school to do that.

Shearer

So you were there four years.

Hayakawa

I guess I was. Since I was having a good time in high school anyway. [laughs] Any excuse to stay.

---

Shearer

So you didn't feel any pressure to get your diploma and graduate with your class? It was just a pretty pleasant experience?

Hayakawa

I think I did graduate with my class. And I took an extra year to learn shorthand, typing, and other clerical skills.

Shearer

Was this because you felt this would be a help in life, or were you thinking of easing your situation in college?

Hayakawa

I wasn't thinking particularly at all. [laughs] I just--I don't know what rationale I went through at the time, but one motivation was that I had finished high school, the usual liberal arts program, but I didn't know shorthand, I didn't know how to type, and I wanted to stick around that high school for another year.

Shearer

During that year, did you--

Hayakawa

So I took a lot of commerce courses.

Shearer

Did that help you to kind of focus your sights on your future agenda?

Hayakawa

I wouldn't say it had that clear a goal. Learning to take shorthand and to type, and a certain number of other skills in that direction, I acquired during an extra year in high school. And if I remember correctly, I think I took some college courses--freshman college courses extramurally--during that year to get myself a start in college. I don't remember that exactly, but that extra year I took to learn shorthand and typing, especially shorthand. Gee, that comes in handy every day of your life.

Shearer

Yes. Especially notetaking in lectures.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

You said you took some commerce courses. Did you discover that you were not interested in business or--?

Hayakawa

No, no. Commerce courses include shorthand and typing.

Shearer

I see.

Mrs. Hayakawa

[Inaudible]

Shearer

[laughs] Mrs. Hayakawa said, "No bookkeeping, alas!" [laughter] Well, this brings me to the end of what I have on paper for this early period in your life and high school. If you can think of

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anything that we should have mentioned and didn't, perhaps you could mention it now.

Snowshoe Hikes and Moccasin Dances

Hayakawa

Something I look back on every now and then with new nostalgia is winter in Winnipeg was cold as all-get-out. But one thing we used to do as a high school together is--this is the boys and girls--we would go on snowshoe hikes. And then they'd give us a set destination, some kind of quasi-dance hall-refreshment center of some kind, and after walking on snowshoes--I don't know where snowshoeing is taken so seriously as it is in Winnipeg and western Canada. With snowshoes, you can walk on the softest snow without your feet going down into it. We'd have a lot of snowshoe hikes and end up in a nice warm hall, where there would be a big fireplace and hot dogs, and we'd have a moccasin dance.

Shearer

Oh! And what is that?

Hayakawa

When you dance in moccasins.

Shearer

Actually Indian-style shoes?

Hayakawa

Yes. Little soft leather shoes.

Shearer

A little bit like what we could call a sock hop? In the fifties, we'd take our shoes off and we'd dance in our stocking feet.

Hayakawa

Yes, like that, except these were, of course, leather moccasins. And of course, in Winnipeg, when winter came, children, especially grade school children, and some high school children, would wear moccasins all winter long. Really. And the reason you can do that is that once it got to be winter in Winnipeg, it never thawed. So you didn't ever have wet feet from wearing moccasins. When it became warm enough for moisture, then you changed into regular shoes or rubbers or whatever. But in the dead of winter, the temperature never got warm enough for the snow to melt, and so you had these non-waterproof leather moccasins, and would romp around in them all winter when you were a child.

Shearer

Now, these moccasins must have had high sides.

---

Hayakawa

Some of them did, some of them didn't. Some people just wore two or three pairs of socks underneath, and they would come up to about here, or sometimes up a little bit higher. But essentially, apparently, we always took advantage of the fact that once the cold weather set in, there wasn't going to be any moisture on the ground, because there was not enough warmth in the air ever to melt the snow. So the snow was dry all winter long until spring started bursting upon us.

Shearer

And these were Indian-made moccasins?

Hayakawa

I don't know if they were Indian-made or not. I think there were Canadian manufacturers in that business by that time.

Shearer

Were there any Indian children in your school?

Hayakawa

No, not a one.

Shearer

Any Indians in evidence in town?

Hayakawa

No. I don't know where the hell they were. [laughs] We never worried about them.

Shearer

Just were not seen, particularly.

Hayakawa

Right. We had a lot of Scotsmen, lot of Jewish. It was pretty much Anglo-Saxon, except in our part of town one-third of our class was Jewish.

Shearer

Well, I'm glad you remembered that snowshoe hiking and moccasin dancing. That's not something I've heard about.

More on Canadian Machine Gun Corps

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##

Shearer

This morning I was hoping that we could pick up on something you mentioned last time concerning your particular enjoyment of your experience in the cavalry, in the militia. You mentioned that the leader of the militia was your Latin teacher, and a kind of hero of yours and that the militia was really a wonderful experience for you. What was it that appealed to you so?

Hayakawa

Well, I suppose like many very young men, I enjoyed playing soldier. We were the First Squadron, Canadian Machine Gun Corps. It was a "squadron" rather than a "company" because we

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were supposed to be a cavalry unit. However, they didn't give us horses, and only rarely did we see a machine gun. Anyway, our commanding officer, who was also my high school Latin teacher, Sid Gardner, was a man we admired a lot. We went one evening a week for drill and indoctrination, as do militia regiments in the United States, I suppose. In the summer, we went to summer camp, an actual military camp, near Brandon, Manitoba.

Shearer

Was that experience akin to what we think of as boot camp, or did it have more recreational--

Hayakawa

It was recreational, insofar as we got away from our jobs and our school. But it was a genuine military operation, although it was in the middle of the twenties. The First World War was over, and the Second World War was not even dreamed of yet. So we really had a very good time. I remember those summer camps with great pleasure. We had something going in the Canadian militia that I suppose exists in other places. We started out as privates, but since we were a cavalry regiment, we were called "troopers." I was trooper in the First Squadron, Canadian Machine Gun Corps.

In the militia, this happens frequently, but it doesn't often happen in the British army, and that is to jump from being a sergeant to being a lieutenant, an officer, and not an NCO [noncommissioned officer]. The class lines aren't as distinct in Canada as they are in Britain. So ultimately, I became a lieutenant, which the British and Canadians call a "leftenant."

Shearer

How did you distinguish yourself in order to jump rank?

Hayakawa

Well, you just hung around long enough. [laughter] I went to drill in camp regularly, I guess. I'd been going about three years in that militia regiment.

Mrs. Hayakawa

We have a wonderful picture of him somewhere; I'm making a note to look up a picture of him in his fatigues and puttees.

Hayakawa

Have you got one of those somewhere?

Shearer

Wonderful!

I envision sort of survival skills being taught at this camp. Is that what you recall?

Hayakawa

It wasn't as realistic as all that. We weren't replaying the Boer War. No, it was pretty much a matter of learning certain

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weapons. In our case, it was learning the Vickers Machine Gun. We also had pistol practice with a Webley .45.

Shearer

Toughening programs, physical or mental?

Hayakawa

Yes, but not very. One of the most interesting things that I remember vividly is--the habit still remains with me: we had to polish our boots. Reporting for your first lineup in the morning, your boots had to be polished or you were sent back to your tent. So I still polish my boots every morning, decades and decades later. I still look at them and see if they need polishing.

In many ways, that camp was a very important experience for me, because--you know, when a whole bunch of men are together, there is some time or other in which you have to exhibit what we nowadays call one's "machismo." This is a funny little incident. We washed at not exactly sinks, but long tables in which taps poured water down; the dirty water would go out as fresh water would be coming in. While we were doing this, I took off a ring and put it on the edge. Then when it came time to rinse and put the ring back on, the ring was gone.

This was one of my very early experiences in making an actual physical challenge to a guy much bigger than I. I knew that this guy had stolen the ring, or very probably had stolen the ring. He was much bigger, but I was more pugnacious. So I didn't have to hit him, but I kept threatening to hit him unless he came forward with that ring, and he said, "I ain't got it, I ain't got it, I ain't got it." [laughs] I started threatening to hit him, and you know? He finally broke down and took me back to his tent, where he had the ring hidden in the folds of the rolled-up tent. He pulled it out and gave it to me.

I was very pleased with myself for that. I didn't have to hit him, and I won on pure psychological warfare.

Shearer

So it was the threat of physical--you just kept badgering --

Hayakawa

Yes, I kept this up. If I'd been he, I would have been hit--I'd probably have struck out. Because he was much bigger than I was.

Shearer

But you knew your man?

Hayakawa

I didn't know, I really didn't. I was kind of surprised when he turned around and fled.

Shearer

Was there an audience to this?

---

Hayakawa

Yes, there was some audience, too. Oh, I know what. I was much smaller than this guy, but I was sure he'd stolen the ring. My friends and his friends, too, they were all around there, They wanted to see a real fight. So I kept being very, very aggressive and belligerent, and the guy was simply a coward. He didn't want to fight. He kept backing away. Eventually, I went into his tent and found my ring. But the point I'm making is that I was sufficiently aggressive so that, although the guy was much bigger than me, I had him scared.

Shearer

You achieved a psychological advantage and you maintained it?

Hayakawa

Yes. That's the kind of test that you're put to constantly in the militia, especially in summer camp in the militia. I recall that summer camp was a desert-like place, flat all over. Most of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta are pretty flat anyway. It was very sunny and quite hot, but very cool at night--a very pleasant place. I remember those summer camps with great pleasure.

Shearer

Was this where the actual horses were kept? This is where you had the few horse-gun exercises?

Hayakawa

Yes, we had a few horses. You know, this was the middle of the 1920s--1925, 1926, 1927--so the general feeling at the time was, there's no war coming. Militia training was cut down to a minimum. Therefore, despite the fact that we were a "cavalry" regiment, we never saw one damn horse, except for one or two days when they found a few horses for us to ride. But the rest of the time we did our cavalry training on foot.

Shearer

It's interesting, so many writers now are commenting on the importance of male bonding at some point in a young man's life, and I guess this perhaps is one of those points.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Language and Ethnic Groups

Shearer

One other thing that I really neglected to ask you about, when you were talking about some of your earlier schooling in Winnipeg and perhaps in Calgary too, was the French language.

Hayakawa

There were no French-speaking people in my part of Calgary, or my part of Winnipeg. The French-speaking people were in an

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adjoining town, which is coterminous with Winnipeg, called St. Boniface. They had their own French-speaking high school and college. They lived entirely separate lives. We didn't even have athletic competitions with them in soccer or ice hockey or rugby.

Shearer

Was that because of housing and neighborhood patterns?

Hayakawa

I think it was because of religion, mostly. The Catholic churches were all in St. Boniface. [laughs] Whatever it is, St. Boniface is still a French-speaking enclave as part of Winnipeg.

Shearer

Did you ever mix with the French-speaking--

Hayakawa

No, we didn't. They had their own high school and they had their own college, and they were, of course, Roman Catholic. So the French Canadians in Winnipeg we hardly ever met.

Shearer

What about commerce? Was there any trade back and forth, restaurants, French food, that sort of thing?

Hayakawa

If there were, they were in St. Boniface. We never went to St. Boniface, because there was no one to talk to in English.

Shearer

As you got older, into high school age, was it considered unwise for young people to go into the French-speaking town? Would you have been regarded as being on foreign turf? Would you have been challenged, for example?

Hayakawa

No, we just ignored it. We just didn't even think about it. I'm sure people in St. Boniface were coming to Winnipeg, the main part of Winnipeg constantly, because that's where the jobs were, and that's where the big department stores were. So in a curious way, we ignored each other.

Shearer

If the French came into Winnipeg to take jobs or for visiting, then they were functioning in English?

Hayakawa

Yes, they must have been.

Shearer

Because you never encountered--

Hayakawa

No. No, you could tell by an accent every now and then that they were French-speaking originally. But in order to get a job in Winnipeg, you had to be English-speaking.

Shearer

Did you notice, were you aware of any prejudice against the French-speaking population?

---

Hayakawa

We didn't know enough of them to think about them. No, I went to school in the north end of Winnipeg, and we were closest to a huge Jewish section of town. They were culturally much more Jewish than people we know today as our Jewish friends, because these were children of very recent immigrants. So they weren't like the second- or third-generation Jews we meet here.

Shearer

Were they Yiddish-speaking, the European Jews?

Hayakawa

Yes, they were Yiddish-speaking at home, I'm sure, although they all spoke perfectly good vernacular Canadian English by the time we knew them in high school. I had lots of friends among them.

Shearer

So there wasn't a separation in schooling at all.

Hayakawa

No, no.

Shearer

Was there any integration in housing, or were they, as you say, in an enclave?

Hayakawa

This was in the north end of Winnipeg, and there was a huge section in that north end, which was mostly Jewish. I don't know that anyone kept them there specifically, but most of them were fairly poor. They were just newly arrived immigrants, and the parent generation spoke accented English, if they spoke it at all. There was a whole Jewish life going on there.

I went to the same high school the Jewish kids attended. My experience at high school is that, although the Jewish kids and non-Jewish kids didn't associate with each other very much, the Scotch-Canadian and English-Canadian kids took me in as one of them, and the Jewish kids took me in as one of them. So I had lots and lots of friends on both sides.

Shearer

What separated the Jewish kids culturally? I guess you said income was one separating factor. Did they keep close to their old customs?

Hayakawa

No, it's not that. Of course, they observed their Jewish holidays, and so on. These kids were, shall I say, the second generation in Canada. Their parents were immigrants. There weren't any Jewish grandparents, because Winnipeg was a brandnew town at that time. Anyway, I would say one-third of our class was Jewish, and I had as many friends among the Jewish kids as among the Scotch Presbyterians.

Shearer

So you would visit back and forth in homes of your Scottish friends and Jewish friends?

---

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Do you recall hearing adults talk about Jewish people as inferior, or different, or strange?

Hayakawa

No. There was no conflict or much gossip in either direction about the other group. I would say that these were recently arrived Jewish people, so that most of the kids I went to high school with had parents who were immigrants to this country.

[tape interuuption]

Shearer

How did you acquire the nickname, "Don?"

Hayakawa

That I acquired much later, at the University of Wisconsin. I was named Don at Arden House. My name was actually Samuel, as you know.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You were Hak to everybody in Canada.

Hayakawa

Yes, I was Hak.

Shearer

Short for Hayakawa?

Hayakawa

Yes. I was called Sammy when I was much, much younger. You remember, of course, my father named me after Samuel Johnson. In high school, I was Hak.

Shearer

That's interesting, because at the time when you were moving to Winnipeg with a very large Jewish population, you were called Sammy. Or was it Hak?

Hayakawa

I don't know where Hak came in. No, it must have come in in high school, because I do remember that there was a professional baseball player in the American big leagues who was known as Hack Wilson. I think that's where that Hak came from, except his Hack Wilson was H-a-c-k, and they always spelled mine H-a-k.

Shearer

It just occurred to me that maybe having the name Sam or Sammy might have broken the ice a little bit with some of your Jewish friends. Is that possible?

Hayakawa

I don't know if it had any effect, because I never thought about it.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

The very fact that he was of a minority might have been sufficient to break any barriers.

Hayakawa

There was a kind of social barrier between the Gentiles and the Jews in high school.

Shearer

How was that expressed?

Hayakawa

Well, the Gentile kids associated with each other, and the Jewish kids associated with each other. But I associated with both; I was always invited in by both groups.

[tape interruption]

Hayakawa

Marge, do you remember Max Shpeller?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes, I do.

Hayakawa

He's one of those [Jewish kids with immigrant parents]. I went to high school with him.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was your fellow teacher at the university at Madison.

Shearer

Who was this now?

Hayakawa

A man by the name of Shpeller. It's Speller with an added "h" in it. I don't know what ever happened to him. We saw each other again at the University of Wisconsin when I was working for my Ph.D., and so was he.

Shearer

Thinking back to your high school class, did most of the young people go on to further education?

Hayakawa

Not most. I would say perhaps not more than a quarter of them. When they finished high school, most of them felt that they'd had enough education. The Jewish kids were the ones who went on.

Shearer

And did they go to the University of Manitoba, as you did?

Hayakawa

Yes.

---

II University Education

University of Manitoba (B.A.). 1927

Shearer

I remember your saying that it was--was it tuition free? Was that part of the appeal of the University of Manitoba?

Hayakawa

Well, it was pretty low tuition, because I don't remember anything about tuition.

Shearer

Was it close enough to home so that you didn't need to--?

Hayakawa

Well, we went by streetcar.

Shearer

I see. So it was a commuter situation.

Hayakawa

Yes. And the University of Manitoba wasn't much in those days either because, you know, I get that alumni magazine from the University of Manitoba now. No building that we ever went to is part of the University of Manitoba now. In fact, all those buildings have probably been torn down.

Shearer

How do you recall the University of Manitoba? How would you characterize the campus?

Hayakawa

Well, it wasn't really a campus at all. In the first place, many of the classes were held in what used to be law offices, but the lawyers had moved on to better sites, offices somewhere else. Some of the buildings we had at the University of Manitoba were--I don't know if you call them quonset huts or something of that kind. They were temporary shelters, and the real building of the university with its own buildings didn't happen until long after I left Winnipeg. The medical school was way at the other end of town. And the hospital. The agriculture school was way in another suburb. The university was pretty split up in the different parts of town. But we were the liberal arts people.

---

Shearer

Roughly speaking, how many liberal arts students?

Hayakawa

I just don't remember. I would say it's a very small college, by American or contemporary standards.

Shearer

Maybe three hundred? Would it be drawing from all over the province?

Hayakawa

I would say there were more than that. I would say there were almost up to a thousand, but I don't know. There was one college, for example, called Wesley College, which started out as a Methodist college, but it became part of the University of Manitoba. They got their diploma saying "University of Manitoba," not "Wesley College." And so on for the ag school, which was way out in some other part of town. They all went to ag school, but their diploma said University of Manitoba.

Shearer

You knew when you entered what you were going to study?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Did you have a favorite class?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. We had an attractive and enthusiastic English teacher, with whom we read Longfellow's Evangeline. She brought all our reading of poetry to life.

I was sixteen when I finished high school, which at that time took three years. A fourth year, also given at the high school, counted as the first year of colege. So I entered the University of Manitoba as a sophomore. At that time, the University, having no buildings of its own, conducted its classes in abandoned law offices a block or two away from the provincial parliament buildings. Today the University of Manitoba has a fine set of buildings in a suburb, but these were built long after I had left, and I have never seen them.

Shearer

How were the courses taught?

Hayakawa

They were mostly lecture courses. Of course, there were nice lab courses in chemistry, geology, and so on. They had a pretty large and intellectually respectable program, despite the fact that they didn't have any buildings worth a damn. I know one of my good friends was a geology major, and after he got his Ph.D., he was a really distinguished geologist--a real professional. It was the same with all the guys I attended college with. And the women too. They went on from there to medical school; they went on to scientific fields; they went to other Canadian

---

universities. I felt that we had a very good university, except for the buildings.

##

Shearer

I think you told me last time that you were living with your friends the Allisons when you were attending the University of Manitoba.

Hayakawa

Yes. You see, my father and mother and my little sisters took off for Japan, because Father moved his headquarters from Winnipeg and Montreal to Osaka. Father found himself offices and a home, and my mother joined him there with my two young sisters. My brother Fred (my brother's two years younger than I) went to Montreal to live with some relatives there, and I stayed in Winnipeg and moved in with the Allisons. Have I told you about the Allisons? He was professor of English, William Talbot Allison. He had two sons who were my very good friends, Gerard and Carlyle. Carlyle's been dead for some years, and Gerard has just died. And there is a daughter, too--Mary Josephine, or Mary Jo. I went to live with them when I was about eighteen years old, or nineteen. Mary Jo is still alive. She lives in Vancouver.

Shearer

It's wonderful to keep those associations for such a long time. I believe you said that you had worked as a delivery boy for a photofinisher, delivery person during high school. Did you change jobs, or did you continue to work when you were at the University of Manitoba?

Hayakawa

By the time I was at the University of Manitoba, I was through with that job. That was pretty much an after-school job. The work I did later was with my father's importing company. He imported all kinds of stuff from Japan--toys, Christmas tree ornaments. Another thing that he imported was light bulbs for automobiles.

Shearer

For the headlights?

Hayakawa

Headlights and taillights and so on. What you have now is a reflector and the bulb all together in one unit. In those days, you had one reflector and then the bulb in the middle. The bulb would burn out, and you'd take the front lens out--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Like a flashlight.

Hayakawa

Yes. So, there was a big market in automobile light bulbs. Father imported an awful lot of those.

---

Shearer

So that was your employment during your time at the University of Manitoba?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

What about--how did you arrange your academic life and social life and job? Was that difficult?

Hayakawa

Let me see. Ultimately, I think that the wholesale firm of which my father was head just closed up there, and moved all the operations to Montreal. My brother Fred went to Montreal, and my father's brother Harold was head of the Montreal office. I was left all alone. That's when I moved in with the Allisons.

Shearer

Did you date during that time? Or did you focus mainly on studies?

Hayakawa

Socializing with the girls and so on came much later in life in those days, and in Canada, than they do here. Dating by couples was almost unthinkable. It began only in college, if it began even then. We were very shy with each other.

Shearer

Were there group parties and group excursions?

Hayakawa

There were group parties every now and then, yes. The group excursions I remember best of all were in the dead of winter, when we would have snow shoe hikes which would end up as moccasin dances.

Shearer

Oh, yes, I remember. You told me that for the tape last time.

Hayakawa

Did I?

Shearer

Do you recall any social organizations such as fraternities or sororities?

Hayakawa

There were fraternities, yes.

Shearer

Did you belong to one?

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

Do you remember why?

Hayakawa

No. I know Carlyle and Gerard, my friends who were the sons of the English professor with whom I lived, were never members of fraternities. I don't know who were the members of fraternities. The fraternity system must have been both very small and very exclusive. I knew nothing about them.

---

Shearer

You mentioned that there were women in your classes. Was the gender ratio pretty much equal?

Hayakawa

Pretty much, I would say. So many of them were going on to become teachers.

Shearer

Any particular faculty favorites, professors who impressed you?

Hayakawa

Of course, Professor Allison was a very favorite English professor of mine, too. He was very learned in that field. He had published some volumes of poetry.

Shearer

Which you have?

Hayakawa

I have at least one. He was not a great poet, by any means. His verse was very Victorian, as if he was imitating Tennyson, which he was. And Shelley and Keats.

Shearer

Did he seem a great poet to you in those days?

Hayakawa

No. But he was a competent poet, in the sense that when he finished a poem, it was a real, honest-to-God poem.

Shearer

Living in his household, did that give you an especially enriched education?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes, very much. In fact, Professor Allison wrote a weekly book review or column for a newspaper syndicate. When I was nineteen years old--I remember this very vividly--Professor Allison was way behind in his weekly column. I don't even remember what the subject was, but there was some subject on which he wanted to write a column but he didn't have time to do it, because other things were piling up. So he said, "Would you sketch one out for me?" So I did, and I wrote the column--the draft of a column--the right length. He read it over and said, "That's just fine; I'm going to send it out just the way it is." He sent it out over his name.

Shearer

Oh, he did?

Hayakawa

I think that's what happened. And then the next time, he sent it out over my name. Anyway, I was a columnist before anybody knew it.

Shearer

Well, you must have been--

Hayakawa

I was very thrilled, I was tickled to death.

---

Shearer

Do you recall the subject?

Hayakawa

I have no idea now. But he wrote a syndicated column for a number of Canadian newspapers.

Shearer

Was this in any way a model for your later entry into the newspaper column-writing field?

Hayakawa

Well, it really wasn't a model in the sense that I was already determined to be a writer anyway, and to get a chance to get one of my little essays published, even under his name, was a great step forward for me.

Shearer

Did you send the article back to your father in Japan?

Hayakawa

No, I don't think so.

Shearer

Did you have an opportunity to observe any educational approaches, teaching approaches, that interested you, or do you recall moments of excitement, teaching moments, in class or outside of class?

Hayakawa

No. Professor Allison was one of my better teachers, and I remember--I don't even remember his name--the teacher of Latin was very, very good. He would read aloud Latin poems, presumably in a proper Roman accent, and I found that very inspiring. My French professor was something of a dramatist, and he would read French poetry to us, with theatrical gestures. He was very good.

Shearer

Did you study languages then, too? You must have kept on with Latin, and did you also study French?

Hayakawa

Yes, I studied French.

Shearer

Were you ambitious to write poetry?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. I was ambitious to write, it didn't matter what, so long as it could get published.

[interruption]

McGill University (M.A.). 1928

Shearer

You were just telling me about the French teacher who read poetry in French with great dramatic flourish, which you found inspiring. How did you settle on McGill?

---

Hayakawa

Soon after graduating with my B.A. from the University of Manitoba, Gerard, Professor Allison's oldest son, and I decided to take a cattle train to Montreal for a summer adventure. I cannot reconstruct how or where we had our meals on that train or where we slept.

The reason we were getting a free ride across the continent is that, in the event of a train derailment or wreck, the cattle would start running away and the railroad wanted a few extra men on the train to help recapture them. We really had nothing to do--no duties--except in the event of a train wreck and escaping cattle. Fortunately, nothing happened to the train and we were left off when we reached Toronto. I don't remembers now how we got from Toronto to Montreal. But I do remember meeting a few men and women friends in Toronto.

I had an uncle in Montreal, and my brother had gone to live with that uncle, Harold Saburo Hayakawa, and his English wife, Nora. Having found myself in Montreal, it naturally occurred to me to go to McGill University.

Shearer

Were there particular professors you had heard of?

Hayakawa

No, I didn't know a thing about McGill, except that it was Canada's most famous university.

Shearer

So you lived with your uncle and aunt--

Hayakawa

No, I didn't. I don't know how I organized this, but there was a student union building, and in the basement of that, there were a couple of rooms that could be occupied. I don't think I had to pay rent. I had to do some kind of chores for the building. So I stayed in that little basement room in the student union building for, I guess, almost two years. I worked for my M.A. degree there.

Shearer

Did Gerard or Carlyle follow with you to McGill, or did they go off to do other things?

Hayakawa

No. Carlyle went on to become a newspaper man and he spent the rest of his life at that. He died fairly young, in his sixties. Gerard died quite recently, on August 31 [1988], in Winnipeg. He was the oldest. He went to medical school and became a physician. I guess a reasonably successful one, but he's been retired from the medical profession for a long time now. He must have been eighty-six when he died. Their younger sister, Mary Jo, is the only one still alive. She lives in Vancouver.

---

Shearer

Do you remember Montreal in those days? What was it like to live there?

Hayakawa

Well, I loved McGill University very, very much. I enjoyed it. I wrote a column for the McGill Daily--I think that's the name of the paper--while I was there.

Shearer

What was the subject of your column, or did you have a particular subject?

Hayakawa

No, as I recall, it was not a column in the usual sense of an essay that goes all the way through on one subject. It was a column with bits of witticism and a little poem, a little narrative, jokes, and so on. But I did have that column for all of an academic year, I think, at McGill.

Shearer

You were at McGill and received your M.A. in 1928?

Hayakawa

Yes. Then I stayed an extra year, so I left in 1929.

Shearer

What did you do in the extra year?

Hayakawa

This is a very important part of my life. I became associated with some young people about my age who were trying to become poets. There are two names that stand out, Leo Kennedy and Abraham Klein. There were others, too, but they're the two important ones. Leo Kennedy was determined to become a poet. At that time, so was I. Abe Klein took his Judaism very seriously. He wrote a lot of long poetry with Hebraic themes, picking up ideas from the Old Testament. Much of it was over our heads, but we knew he was writing pretty good stuff. I don't know whatever happened to him, but he probably went on to write in his maturity. He was a good writer.

Shearer

These were associations you had formed at McGill?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

What was it that solidified your idea to become a poet? By this time you were--

Hayakawa

Well, the McGill Daily--that was the name of the paper--had a weekly column to which I contributed. Sometimes I contributed verse and sometimes I contributed wisecracks and little stories. But that kept me writing.

Shearer

So it was the association with these--these were students, right? Leo and Abraham were both students?

---

Hayakawa

No. Leo wasn't a student; his family was both very, very Irish and quite poor. I don't think he ever became a regularly enrolled student at McGill University. But he hung around with the small group of young men who were interested in becoming writers. Let me put this more emphatically. All in our group were determined to become writers--and I believe we all did.

Shearer

How did you, as a member of this group, operate?

[break for tea]

Hayakawa

I'll make a diagram for you. Here are mountains back here. [gestures] And then, coming south from there, there are hospitals, there is a residential district, and then there's the campus of McGill University. And then below that, there were excellent if modest French restaurants, rooming houses, shops, and so on, and a nice bar. That street to many of us was part of McGill University, because there were a lot of places where we used to meet. Above all, there was a place where we used to meet for beer. The people who were aspiring to be writers, like Leo Kennedy and Abe Klein and I, would meet in one of those bars and talk poetry and read our poems to each other.

Shearer

Did you develop a following for your poetry readings?

Hayakawa

No. We didn't have a following. If we didn't meet together, we had no audience at all. [laughter]

Shearer

So it was a very "select" group. But how long did you stay together in this enterprise?

Hayakawa

Leo Kennedy, who never went to college but who hung around with us, he's the one I stayed with longest. Others graduated and went away, others became lawyers, ultimately members of parliament, and so on. It was only a small coterie of poets and would-be poets who hung around that street. I've forgotten the name; let's call it McGill College Avenue. That may have actually been its name, for all I remember.

Shearer

So this brings you up to 1929, with the extra year, following your master's degree. How long did you stay in Montreal?

Hayakawa

Two years.

---

Language Divisions in Montreal

Shearer

Were you aware then of this French and English language conflict? How do you recall that?

Hayakawa

One very important thing is that the whole city was divided along language lines. The east part of Montreal was solidly French-speaking, and the English-speaking part of town was the other side, including a fashionable part of town called Westmont, Westmount--I've forgotten which--which was both wealthy and entirely Anglo.

Shearer

Did that reflect the political power--?

Hayakawa

I just don't know.

Shearer

Were the English and French language differences or conflicts carried out in the university setting as well?

Hayakawa

No. There was the University of Montreal, which I'm not pronouncing correctly, because Mon-real [gives French pronunciation], as they called it, is a French-speaking university, a very big one, dominated by the French-speaking faculty and students and by the Catholic priesthood. And then there was McGill University which was entirely English-speaking. I'm sure the University of Montreal had an English department, and we had a French department at McGill. But nevertheless, they were very, very separate from each other.

You could live your entire life in the French part of town and never speak English, or you could live your entire life in the English part of town and never speak French. I am talking about the 1920s, but I'm sure the profound linguistic and cultural difference still divides Montreal in effect into two separate cities.

Shearer

Were you aware of any complaints or grievances or events reported in the paper indicating discontent with, I guess it would be, access to public life, either on the part of the French-speaking population or the English?

Hayakawa

Well, if there were, I was not aware of them. It wasn't an issue for any of us. We lived in an English enclave of Montreal, and the French speakers lived in their enclave. There wasn't an awful lot of contact, and if the French-Canadians spoke English, many of them would have jobs in the English part of town. In fact, the last summer I was there, the summer of 1929, I drove a taxi. Many of my colleagues in the taxi

---

business were French Canadians who spoke English, or else they wouldn't have worked for that company.

Shearer

And this was a company that was concentrated on the English-speaking section of the city?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

What if you had a fare to the French district?

Hayakawa

Oh, we could always go. But actually, I rarely had to go there, because we were in the English-speaking part of town, and when someone wanted a cab, they were going to the English-speaking part of Montreal. Very rarely did any passenger in my taxi ask to be taken to a French-speaking part of town. The French-speaking taxi-drivers were distinguishable; they worked under different company names from ours, which was Standard Cabs.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Your brother became quite fluent in French.

Hayakawa

Yes, my brother Fred was there all that time. He was a businessman and a salesman, going from store to store and company to company selling stuff, and he speaks wonderful Canadian French which, as you can guess, is very different from French in Paris. But he was completely bilingual as a manufacturer's representative and as a salesman.

Shearer

What other people have characterized as a severe conflict between the English- and French-speaking did not at that point in your life impinge on you as a student?

Hayakawa

No. Mostly, the two groups, English-speaking and French-speaking, ignored each other. However, clerks in the big downtown department stores were usually bilingual. But you could tell by their accent when they were originally French speaking.

Shearer

Recalling the faculty of professors at McGill, are there any who absolutely stand out for you from your master's program?

[Mark Hayakawa enters; greetings and introductions follow]

Hayakawa

The one that I remember most of all was Professor Files. He was an American.

##

Shearer

What was it that you recall particularly?

---

Hayakawa

He was just a good teacher, an unspectacular man, nothing odd or glamorous about him. But he was the best teacher I had at McGill. The head of the English Department, Professor Cyrus McMillan, was a very Canadian sort, very British, too, very irascible, and I don't know much more about him. I think I took a one-semester course under him, but I don't remember enough to make much difference. Files was the one who helped inspire us and helped us most.

Shearer

What happened after you left McGill? That would be about mid- 1929 or late 1929?

Hayakawa

What happened is that after getting my M.A. in `28, I stayed around another year, just hanging around really, but continuing to write. But during that year, I decided I had to go on for a Ph.D. At random, I applied to a number of American universities. I don't at all remember which they were.

Shearer

And the Ph.D. possibility presented itself to you? Why?

Hayakawa

Because I wanted to have full professional accreditation in case I wanted to become an English professor, in case I couldn't make a living as a poet. [laughs]

Shearer

I see. Your year was instructive in that regard. And you were beginning to think more in terms of teaching as a career?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

So Madison, the University of Wisconsin, said yes, come.

Hayakawa

Yes. I applied to several American universities at that time, but the University of Wisconsin was the one that took me in.

Shearer

Do you remember why you thought of Wisconsin?

Hayakawa

I didn't know one American university from another--one state from another in the United States, at that time! I just took suggestions that people gave me.

Shearer

So you arrived at the University of Wisconsin in 1930?

Hayakawa

No, it was 1929.

Shearer

I gather you received your Ph.D. in 1935.

Hayakawa

Yes, I got there in 1929. I wish I could remember the name of the fellowship I received. There was, I believe, a Mary M. Adams Fellowship in English to apply for. It paid $600 a year,

---

but that was a lot of money at that time. I got that fellowship at Madison.

Shearer

This is 1929--

Hayakawa

But before going to Madison, I spent the last summer in Montreal driving a taxi.

Shearer

Were you able to earn enough money driving the taxi to--

Hayakawa

I got along, yes, sure, and I even had some pocket money with which to start a new life in Wisconsin.

Shearer

Those were very bad years in the United States.

Hayakawa

Yes, the Depression really started in 1929. Those years weren't very good in Canada, either.

University of Wisconsin (Ph. D). 1935

Shearer

Was this the first time you had come to the United States?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

First crossing. What was that like, coming across the border?

Hayakawa

Well, I don't remember the border crossing. I think I came by train to Chicago, originally. I went for a walk that evening before getting my train to Madison and [laughs] got beaten up and robbed by two black men.

Shearer

Oh, no!

Hayakawa

That wasn't very important.

Shearer

What part of Chicago--

Hayakawa

I have no idea now. Whatever it was, it was the wrong part.

Shearer

So that was your introduction to America.

Hayakawa

Sort of. Not really. I never felt it that way. I got to Madison the following day. I started, I think, by living in the University Club there, but that was more expensive than I wanted. I found I wanted a rooming house.

---

Shearer

What do you recall of Madison in those days?

Hayakawa

It was a very, very exciting place. There was a literary organization called the Arden Club, very close to campus. It was in Arden House, a women's residence, and it was also literary headquarters for people who wanted to write. They had literary evenings quite frequently, readings of Shakespeare or one's own poetry, critical evaluation of new novels, whatever.

The tradition was solidly in effect before I got there, before Marge got there. Calling it the Arden Club, of course, was a reference to Shakespeare's Forest of Arden. Men could have lunch or dinner there or come for literary meetings. Of course they were never invited upstairs.

Shearer

First floor only.

Hayakawa

Yes. Of the twenty or so girls who lived there, some were consciously literary. They were majoring in English; they wanted to become poets or novelists; others were physical education or chemistry majors who had found a nice place to live, but didn't take part as a rule in our literary meetings.

Shearer

Did Americans strike you as odd or--

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

Boisterous or different in any way?

Hayakawa

No. I made no generalizations about Americans.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Explain The Rocking Horse.

Hayakawa

The Rocking Horse started after you got there, didn't it?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

What was The Rocking Horse?

Hayakawa

That was a literary magazine, published by the Arden Club, that Marge and I both had a hand in.

Shearer

Did you start it?

Hayakawa

We started it, yes. It lasted for almost two academic years, which means for seven issues.

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Mrs. Hayakawa

We got our title from a poem by John Keats: "They sway'd about upon a rocking horse, / And thought it Pegasus." That quotation was on our masthead.

Shearer

You were just saying that was the point at which you acquired the nickname "Don." How did that come about?

Hayakawa

Well, I was always called Hak at McGill.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You had much more of a British accent when you first came?

Hayakawa

At that time, yes. But I fell among barbarians and lost it.

Shearer

You felt that your friends at the University of Wisconsin were reluctant to call you Sam.

Hayakawa

I suppose Hak was an abbreviation of Hayakawa. It may also have been picked up from the name of a big-league third baseman, Hack Wilson, whom I admired at the time. My new friends had to decide whether to call me "Sam" or "Hak," and they didn't like either--the names didn't sound poetic enough. So I got a new nickname, "Don." I don't remember who suggested this, but I must have had enough English in my speech to suggest to an American ear the speech of a "don" in a British university.

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III Margedant Peters Hayakawa

Mrs. Hayakawa

My name, by the way, is pronounced Margedant, three syllables with a hard G, as in gift. It's an inconsistency that "Marge" with a soft G, as in gem, is the shortened version.

Family Background

Shearer

Could you tell me the names of your parents and a little bit about your family?

Mrs. Hayakawa

My father's name was Frederick Romer Peters, and he was born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1875 or 1876. His father was a Methodist minister who served successively in many churches in Ohio. My father went to the University of Cincinnati, took a summer's bicycle trip to Europe, and then went to work as a reporter for the Cincinnati Post of the Scripps-McRae chain. In 1905 he and my mother, Clara Adelaide Margedant, were married in Hamilton, and they went off together to Evansville, Indiana, where he had been sent by the Scripps firm to found a new newspaper, the Evansville Press.

A few years later he went to Terre Haute, Indiana, to start the Terre Haute Post. My brother, William Wesley Peters, was born there in 1912. The family then returned to Evansville, where I was born in 1915. They remained there, except for the year 1922-1923, when my father took over the editorship of the Indianapolis Times. We then returned to Evansville and remained there until my father's death.

Shearer

And your mother's family?

Mrs. Hayakawa

In my mother's family there were seven children. Her father, William C. Margedant, was a German immigrant born in Dusseldorf. He was one of the forty-eighters, the generation of young Germans who were inspired by the revolutionary and libertarian

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currents that swept Germany at that time. He settled in Hamilton, Ohio, which was a German community twenty miles north of Cincinnati.

He volunteered in the Civil War and served on the staffs of Generals Rosecrans and Thomas as a photographer and topographical engineer. The family still has a book of his extraordinary photographs of the battles of Chicamaugua, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and so forth, a copy of which is also in the national archives.

He ultimately went into the manufacturing business, which he was not really fitted for, being talented in other ways. But he made a living of it. It was originally a woodworking-machinery factory. His three sons, August, Carl, and Will, went into the business after him; but it declined when wagons were replaced by automobiles.

They changed the business into a gray-iron foundry, which made castings. I can remember watching the huge suspended kettles of red-hot metal being poured down into molds; and later, in the Depression years when the foundry had failed, my Uncle Carl, my favorite uncle of all, going daily as usual to the post office at 7:30 a.m., picking up the mail, and sitting alone in the silent building all day.

Shearer

Were you very close to your mother's family?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, we were very close to them. We went there in the summer and at Christmas time. Aunt Carrie, Uncle Carl, Aunt Augusta, and Uncle Will lived in "the House on the Hill," which they had built in 1915 or thereabouts after the great Miami River flood of 1913 had destroyed their large old family home in Hamilton. Actually, their cousin, Adi Doepke of Cincinnati, built it.

Shearer

How do you spell that name?

Mrs. Hayakawa

[spells] That's short for Adelaide. Like many German families, the Doepkes had all kinds of silly nicknames for each other. They owned a department store in Cincinnati. She took Aunt Augusta and Aunt Carrie separately on some wonderful trips--Europe several times, Egypt, I think Hawaii, too. She not only liked their company, but she considered herself an invalid, so she had to have someone travel with her. A result of all this traveling was that sitting outside at the House on the Hill on summer evenings, we children heard all sorts of accounts of wonderful places and adventures. They were very good storytellers. We loved to listen.

---

Shearer

Are you an only child?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, I have a brother, two and a half years older than I, William Wesley Peters. He's an architect. He had finished his second year at Massachusetts Institute of Technology studying to become an architect when he learned that Frank Lloyd Wright was starting his Taliesin Fellowship in Wisconsin. He promptly abandoned MIT to head for Taliesin. He and I drove to Wisconsin together in the Fall of 1932, he to join the Taliesin architectural group, I to enroll in the University of Wisconsin. He has been associated with Taliesin as apprentice, which all the students were called, associated architect, and chief architect after Mr. Wright's death. His life's story would provide a fascinating oral history.

Shearer

And your father's middle name is R-o-m-e-r?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. That was a New York or New England family name, his mother's family. One of his Romer ancestors was one of the three young men during the Revolutionary War who captured Major Andre, the British officer who was subsequently hanged as the spy who had conspired with Benedict Arnold to betray West Point.

Childhood in Evansville

Shearer

Tell me a little bit about Evansville, as you remember growing up.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Evansville is a city on the Ohio River--then with about 100,000 people. It's the biggest city in southern Indiana. It's very hot in the summer there. Winters are mild. Indianapolis, the capital, was and is the biggest city in the state. There were lots of little rural towns. The Ohio River makes big bends around Evansville, and it flooded badly almost every spring until they built a series of dams. There was still a good deal of river freight traffic in my time there; perhaps there is still.

We had a country place, which we called the Farm, about sixty miles to the east on wooded hills--actually three hundred-foot cliffs above the Ohio River. The river swung in four big bends, the surrounding miles of Kentucky farmland spread out like a quilt. We had about one hundred acres of forest and apple trees; the original owners of land around there had moved away to make a better living elsewhere. We had a tenant family

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on the land who took care of the apple trees and watched over the house.

It was a simple old farmhouse. We loved the place. My father liked to drive up there for weekends, work hard for two days cutting weeds or painting the house or whatever. He'd get terribly sunburned and would have to drive home with his shirt off.

Shearer

Were there animals on the farm?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Not really. Our neighbor about a mile away still tried to make a living off his place, and he had a few animals in addition to lots of apples. When we stayed longer than a weekend, I used to go over and play with their kids. Their mother and father were cultivated people but they never made a decent living. Real poverty. Farmers around there kept hounds, and you could hear the hounds baying across the valleys, especially on moonlit nights.

Shearer

Did Don go to the Farm?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Don never liked it because he got such terrible chigger bites. He was miserable. They got infected and he had sores for weeks. When we were children, we went into the woods with rags around our ankles soaked in coal oil.

Shearer

How far was this from home?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Sixty miles. Roads were not so good when we first started going there. It was an adventure.

Shearer

How would you describe your family's position or status in Evansville?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, it was interesting, because my father was an important man in town, in a way, because he was editor of one of the two papers in the city, one morning paper and one evening paper. He had the Evansville Press, which was the evening paper. People used to call him up at night--the mayor and others--and they'd talk for an hour or more on the phone. But he believed, like E. W. Scripps, the founder of the chain, that newspapers should not be closely tied to the local financial and political powers. The newspaper should be a watchdog and an outsider. Therefore, I never felt that I was a part of the local elite.

When I went to dancing school, I looked at all those people from First Street, Riverside Drive, and so on, as a different order of being. Not that I was sensitive or timid in my

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inferior position; I was kind of proud of it. [laughs] That was the atmosphere: "You don't have to be like everybody else." That was the feeling that I was given as a child. My mother's family were always able to be different from other people--not in any really assertively unconventional way or violating other people's sensibilities, but there was just that feeling. I think that was the greatest thing I could have inherited.

Shearer

Before you proceed, did you attend public schools?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, diagonally across the street. We lived across the street from a library, next to a ten-acre park where we played, and across the street diagonally was the school, so it was very nice. My brother and I could start after the first bell rang and get to school by running. Later I went to the public high school a little more than a mile away.

Shearer

What was that?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Benjamin Bosse High School, named after a mayor of the city who my father said had been a crook. [laughter] I don't know how true that was, but anyway my father didn't admire him. I was alert enough to enjoy these little subtleties.

Shearer

Did you expect to go to college?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes.

Shearer

And it was, of course, assumed by your parents, that you would?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Attending the University of Wisconsin

Shearer

How did you happen to settle on the University of Wisconsin?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I wanted to be a journalist. Wisconsin had at that time a rather famous journalism school. At least it had a reputation. My father didn't think it was a good idea. He didn't think highly of journalism schools.

##

Mrs. Hayakawa

I was already interested in newspapering. I was the editor of the high school paper, The School Spirit, a weekly. I had a very good journalism teacher in high school. As for choosing

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the University of Wisconsin, we had been to Madison on an auto trip. It was an attractive place with its nice lakes. I had no other compelling reason for choosing any college, except I did not want to go to Indiana University or Evansville College.

Shearer

Why was that?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, it was too close to home. I wanted to go somewhere farther away. I thought it was more interesting.

Shearer

Away from your big family?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No. I didn't want to get away from the family. I just thought Indiana didn't seem interesting enough. Wisconsin seemed quite a bit more interesting with La Follette liberalism and so forth. When I went there, I took the introductory course in journalism, and I found that I really had had all that stuff in my high school journalism course and from knowing how a newspaper is put together. I had learned a lot standing around watching the linotype operators and the copy editors in the office while waiting for my father. I didn't really need this course, so I dropped it after the first semester.

I lived in a dormitory. My parents had encouraged me to go to a nice new privately run dormitory off the campus called Langdon Hall.

Meeting Don Hayakawa at the Arden Club

Shearer

And was that agreeable?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, it was a nice place, comfortable. I tried to go into things with the spirit of liking everything and exploring everything, and giving it a good try, but I soon found that I was--well, Langdon Hall attracted the sort of girls who were interested in becoming sorority girls. I had a number of invitations to the sorority parties at first, half a dozen or so, and I went to them. It was rush week. I wanted to be open to all experiences, and I tried to go and like the people and have a good time. But I really was ill at ease, and I was not terribly disappointed when I got only one bid to come back again.

I followed through on that one sorority for several events and then decided that I really wasn't interested in being a sorority girl. I had sufficient interest in my studies to keep

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me going; I wasn't unhappy there in Langdon Hall, but people would come and sit in one's room and talk and tell the same dirty stories over and over again. Everybody was trying to share a little bit of information. It got kind of tiresome. There were several nice people, but not nice enough to make me want to spend any more years there.

But fortunately I got acquainted with the Arden Club, which Don has already spoken of. And this happened because I was fortunate enough to have been excused from freshman English after taking the test all freshmen took. I got into a literature course taught by Miss Charlotte Wood. An older woman--I would have said elderly then. She was nice but strange looking. She was slightly hump-backed, and she had a very grandmotherly soft, sagging face. But one eye didn't keep in parallel with the other eye, so you couldn't tell whom she was looking at. But I liked her class. And Miss Wood was the housemother of the Arden House.

One day in the fall of my freshman year, she invited me to come to tea at the Arden Club on Friday. A junior faculty member was to give a talk on T.S. Eliot, and she thought I might be interested. I had never heard of T.S. Eliot, but I was looking for people who were interested beyond the topics of my Langdon Hall friends. So I went gladly.

There was a fire in the fireplace in the large, comfortable living room. The speaker was a young teaching assistant, a Japanese, but I didn't catch his name. Several other teaching assistants were there and a scattering of students.

The speaker read and discussed The Waste Land, which I didn't understand very well, but he read very well indeed in perfectly unaccented English, except for a slightly British accent. He explained some of the obscure references and read some other poems of Eliot's. Eliot, he said, if I remember correctly, was a royalist in politics, and Catholic in religion, and a classicist in literature.

In the discussion that followed, the other instructors jumped in, attacking Eliot's political and religious views and obscure language and questioned the value of such a poet in the present critical times; they attacked the speaker personally for reactionary views.

I was not disposed to be sympathetic to monarchy, high church religion, or obscurantism. But I warmed to the sturdy way in which the young Japanese speaker refused to be badgered

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and held his own, stoutly but politely. He did not get angry. He was trying to explain Eliot in Eliot's own terms.

Now this is more like it, I thought. This is really interesting. Controversy. Discussion of ideas. I found out that the speaker was S.I. Hayakawa, or Don, and that he was a regular at Arden House. And that he was a Canadian. No wonder he didn't have a Japanese accent.

This was my first introduction to the Arden Club, and a momentous thing it proved to be for me. I became a frequenter of the Friday afternoon gatherings. I made many friends. I had found a place where men and women could meet and get to know each other on the basis of common interest without the artificiality of dating. The next school year in the fall, I moved into the residence.

Life at Arden House

Mrs. Hayakawa

In the fall of 1933, I had moved into Arden House. Life had become very full and rich. Full of friends and learning and lots of pleasures--fencing on the front porch. Don was teaching several of us to fence. I remember we had a tailor make canvas fencing jackets.

I remember Marjorie Heebink, the deadpan humorist from a small town in northern Wisconsin, pounding out the music of Gilbert and Sullivan songs after dinner, while Elinor Price from the unfashionable streets of New York belted out the patter songs and sentimental ballads: "I have a song to sing-oh." There were walks along the lake, only a few blocks away. And rides with Don in a canoe a departing friend had willed him. And concerts and plays and even movies to attend.

How did we do it? We had to study. I was, during those years, taking English literature, French, Italian, and German, geography, and I can't remember what else. In my junior and senior years I was undertaking an Honors Reading course, which meant potentially being tested on anything in English literature. Don was working on his Ph. D thesis on Oliver Wendell Holmes. He and his roommate cooked their dinners in their apartment, and sometimes I joined in, and other friends, too. How did we do all that? I can only think that days were longer.

My roommate was Elinor Price from New York, who was going to school to pursue a literary career. She didn't have a dime

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to her name. Her mother did housework; she was from, I think, Irish background. She was full of aspirations and wonderful, outgoing demonstrations--anyway, she was quite a character. She was also working her way through college. At the Arden Club they had come down to the fact that they had to give people rooms in return for work, because it was the depth of the Depression. She had no money. I remember we became friends when she attacked my feet with a mop, because I was in her way. [laughing] She was mopping the floors.

Publishing The Rocking Horse

Shearer

You published a magazine, didn't you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. It was a time when "little magazines" were popping up throughout the country to give undiscovered writers--talented writers--an audience. It was Don Hayakawa's idea, and he suggested the name, The Rocking Horse. The motto was from Keats: "They sway'd upon a rocking horse/ And thought it Pegasus." A nicely modest motto, but we had high hopes and high standards.

Shearer

What function did the magazine serve? Was it a student literary magazine?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No. We solicited manuscripts from writers in Europe as well as the U.S., but local talent was most welcome if it met our standards. We couldn't pay contributors, of course--few if any little magazines did. But we would give them a wider audience, discover new talent, have an impact on the literary world. High hopes, but as I read the seven issues of The Rocking Horse now, I don't think we did so badly. We did keep it alive, which was in itself success for a little magazine. We traded subscriptions with other little magazine throughout the country. We wrote to many well-known poets in this country and in England and, surprisingly, we received manuscripts in reply.

Shearer

Did you place any of your writing actually in the magazine?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think I wrote a review once, but I actually never wrote very much.

Hayakawa

No, you didn't write at all, did you?

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Mrs. Hayakawa

No, I didn't. Well, I had no real business being a reviewer. I was no poet. I never aspired to be a poet. I aspired to write a novel.

Hayakawa

I can put my hands on a file of the magazine right now.

Shearer

And you were the editor, is that right?

Hayakawa

Was I the editor? I don't think so.

Mrs. Hayakawa

No. You were faculty advisor or some kind of advisor.

In the seventh and last issue in Spring 1935 were contributions from Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Horace Gregory, William Ellery Leonard, and Ezra Pound, among others. What a wonderful education it was for me!

Shearer

How was The Rocking Horse financed?

Mrs. Hayakawa

We had quite a few subscriptions at a dollar a year, sold a few in book stores at 25 cents a copy, paid some expenses out of our own pockets, and received a grant from the University arranged by the wonderful dean, George Sellery, historian and great teacher of wonderful history courses, which Don and I took together. I think they were the best courses I had at the University. I also think Dean Sellery liked us both, and when we called on him to ask for funds for The Rocking Horse, I felt as if he gave us his personal blessing as well as help for our magazine.

Peters Family's Reaction

Shearer

So how did your courtship proceed?

Hayakawa

Well, we worked together on The Rocking Horse and other things.

Mrs. Hayakawa

We didn't consider it a courtship. It was just, you know, a friendship. I don't know how he considered it, but I was aware of the difficulties. In fact, I had no intention of being serious. Anybody who got married before finishing education had disappointed his or her parents, and it just wasn't in the cards. And then, something as unusual as an interracial marriage was much more of an earthquake to a family. And Don realized to a degree that this would be a problem. I don't know when he started being serious about me, but it was just a gradual process--just what I would wish for any child of mine is

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to get to know a person so well that they would have no doubts that they had chosen the right person. Therefore, even then, I could see that a barrier could be an advantage [in a relationship].

Now today, kids have no impediment at all, and they can rush ahead and get wrecked by getting involved with the wrong person before they knew them well. I feel sorry for them, not to have some kind of external or internal obstacle to overcome. I had enough sense to know that this wasn't all bad, and I think Don had enough understanding, too, to accept this whole thing.

My father--to illustrate my family's feeling--do you remember coming down on your motorcycle from Madison to the World's Fair in Chicago?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Mrs. Hayakawa

My family--my mother, father and I--drove up there to see the World's Fair, '32 I think it was, or '33, perhaps. I had asked if I could invite Don to come and join us, so I think we got him a hotel room in the Drake, or someplace. And you came on your motorcycle.

Shearer

This was the first sort of family outing at which Don was present?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. And I knew my father would be more of a problem than my mother would. But I was completely unprepared for the explosion that happened after Don appeared--I don't know if I even told Don at the time.

Hayakawa

I don't think you did.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, when we went together to the fair, nothing untoward happened at all. But afterward, my father was very upset. He said that he had felt humiliated by the way people apparently looked at Don, the reaction of other people. I was really quite astonished and dismayed, because he, as well as others in my family, had always implicitly taught me not to care that much about what other people felt. It was really quite a traumatic trip home for me.

Hayakawa

You never told me about this.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I realized then that we were in for trouble. I was just a sophomore at that time. My father died the next year, when I was a junior. He had a stroke at his desk in the office. I had been--Don by that time had showed some serious intentions, and I

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was faced with a problem. I told him how the family felt. My mother thought it would be extremely difficult, impossible for me to have a normal life under these circumstances. People had just absolutely different ideas about race than they do now.

Hayakawa

They still have them.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, they do, but at least there are many more examples today.

Hayakawa

Think of the number of families in which a girl from a Christian family wants to marry a Jew. They raise all hell, most families.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, that's true.

Hayakawa

A Jew is at least white. [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, well, they just saw a wrecked life for me. They brought up--they put in my way of hearing--stories about tragedies that had happened with people they knew. I knew they were genuinely concerned for me and I didn't want to hurt them. When I told my aunts and uncle about Don, they were supportive though apprehensive. I remember my Uncle Carl telling me to "go for it." Later my mother went to live with her aunts and brother in Hamilton, Ohio.

Shearer

This was after your father's death?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. After I graduated from college, I felt I owed my mother something nice. I wanted to do something for her, so I took her on a trailer trip. We bought a trailer and went to New England and all around, and I drove. We had a wonderful time. She was a very engaging, intelligent, witty person. We had a fine trip. Don joined us; he came on his motorcycle again. [laughs]

Hayakawa

I met you in New England somewhere.

Shearer

Without any objection from your mother?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Not from my mother, no.

Hayakawa

She wasn't overjoyed, exactly.

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, she wasn't overjoyed. She was still fearful for my sake. But she was getting fond of Don. Anyway, after that I took my Aunt Augusta into my confidence, and she said, "You can have the wedding here." She was a great one for putting on wonderful weddings and good food.

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Hayakawa

I didn't know about that. Aunt Augusta.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, it was Aunt Augusta. My mother was living with them in the House on the Hill.

My mother took it very well. She took everything, she took my father's death, everything that happened to her, she took very well indeed. Except that she fell on the kitchen floor and broke her leg, and who was it? Who was it who said, "I didn't think you'd have to break her leg to [get her consent]." [laughing]

Home Wedding, May 29, 1937

Shearer

Did she fall on your wedding day?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, I think it was a few days earlier. I think it was Ed Mayer who said that. [laughing] He was another of the young men who came to visit me, and they were always hoping--he was Jewish, but I called him the Great White Hope. [laughter] Because they always loved having him come, because he wasn't Don. Didn't you know that about Ed? I'm sure you did. I told you about his being the Great White Hope. [laughter] He was just a friend. But anyway, he was the one who said, "I didn't think you'd have to break her leg!" But in good spirits, she lay in her bed with a cast on her leg, and the preacher and Don and I stood in front of the fireplace. We decided to have a preacher--

##

Mrs. Hayakawa

That in spite of the fact that my family had a deep vein of anti-clericalism. I mean my mother's family; my father's family was a minister's family, so--

Shearer

Perhaps that was some of the source of the anti-clericalism.

Mrs. Hayakawa

[laughs]

Shearer

You were saying that you had chosen a preacher to marry you in the house.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. Well, my aunt said, "I'll get a preacher that won't expect to be invited to dinner." [laughter] We had planned a nice family dinner, and it was a family that didn't really welcome outsiders. So we had the preacher, and my mother in her cast, and we had a really very nice wedding. And with everybody's

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warm love, we were sent off on a wedding on a trip to England, a bicycle trip to England and Scotland and Paris.

Shearer

Were Don's parents in attendance?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, they were in Japan. Don had told them, and they thought it was fine. If it was fine with him, it was fine with them! No problem at all for them.

Shearer

How about your brother and--

Mrs. Hayakawa

My brother was there, and we called on Don's brother Fred in Montreal soon after.

Hayakawa

There had been interracial marriages in my family before ours-- Uncle Harold; his wife was English. Do you remember that?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, we met them in Montreal.

Hayakawa

They were married before we were, long before.

Shearer

Who was your best man, or did you have one?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, we didn't have a real [formal ritual]. It was just a family ceremony and a family dinner. It was too bad we had to have a preacher there at all. [laughs] You couldn't get a county clerk or whatever they're called. My mother had a cast on her leg. So anyway, it was a memorable family; I feel very warmly about my family. I always did, and that's why it was so difficult. I didn't want to cause them pain. I knew it wouldn't be permanent pain, but I thought I should at least go through college and finish college, because they would be so distressed if I didn't do it right, give it every chance. So that's the story.

After that--no more to tell! [laughter]

Shearer

There is more to tell, I'm sure!

Hayakawa

More than half a century.

Shearer

Do I have the date of your marriage correct? I have May 29, 1937? Is that right?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

So you knew each other how many years, then?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Five years.

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Shearer

You met in 1932.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, late 1932. Your lecture at Arden Club was some time in the fall or spring, so it's almost--. But see, I didn't know how things were going to turn out myself. Everybody predicted dire things, and I couldn't let them be right. Don fortunately understood very well. He was very wonderful about it. But we just had to bring people around slowly.

Shearer

When you say "everybody," do you mean your friends as well, your contemporaries?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, no. It was only the people who were really worried about our personal future, my family--they knew so many sad stories of people who--they could quote all kinds of things that didn't work out. I think I was over cautious, but I didn't want it not to work out so they would be right.

Shearer

So then you took off for a wedding trip. This was a bicycle trip?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. We took a steamer to Glasgow and started there. Bicycled all the way down to London, going through points of literary history, and buying books along the way.

Hayakawa

We went through Robert Burns' country and Sir Walter Scott's country and Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy country. We were such terrific English majors at the time. [laughter]

Shearer

I see you standing. Is this a time you'd like to take a break?

Hayakawa

Yes.

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IV Teaching at University of Wisconsin Extension

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##

Shearer

Today I'd like to ask you about your teaching at the University of Wisconsin Extension. This was between 1936 and 1939.

Hayakawa

That's right.

Shearer

What was your position there?

Hayakawa

We were married in '37. During the year at Antigo, you were with me.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. We went to Antigo after coming back from our trip to Europe.

Hayakawa

That was my first assignment.

Mrs. Hayakawa

The fall of '37, we rented an apartment in a house belonging to Abe Krom. He had a store, a furniture store.

Circuit-Riding English Teacher

Shearer

And at that point, you were teaching at the University of Wisconsin Extension?

Hayakawa

Yes. And teaching at extension at that time meant traveling a lot. I remember with the first year of extension I lived in Wausau and taught there, but I had to teach in Antigo, Merrill, and Rhinelander. Later I taught in Manitowoc and Waupaca.

Shearer

Roughly how large a geographic area did you cover? Was it several counties, or all the towns in one county?

Hayakawa

No, the towns couldn't have been in one county.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

These towns were sixty--maybe fifty--miles from each other.

Hayakawa

They were less than two hours' drive from each other--more like thirty miles apart.

Mrs. Hayakawa

This was quite a challenge, however, in icy roads in winter.

Shearer

What course were you teaching at that point?

Hayakawa

Usually freshman composition.

Mrs. Hayakawa

They had these centers, college centers, in different parts of Wisconsin. It's hard to think back; if we talk back and forth to each other, we get different memories. They had college centers to serve the rural people who couldn't send their children to Madison for some reason.

Shearer

How did these students qualify to be taught? Were there any entrance requirements?

Hayakawa

No, there weren't.

Shearer

So interest alone was sufficient?

Hayakawa

They were high school graduates. Maybe they couldn't afford to go to Madison to the university, so the university went out to them. We held our classes in local high schools, libraries, and other public buildings.

Shearer

So your assignment was to go to these various college centers and teach the students who showed up?

Hayakawa

That's right.

Mrs. Hayakawa

They were enrolled, and they were getting college credit. So this was a substitute for having to go to Madison.

Shearer

I don't think they had community colleges in those days--

Hayakawa

No, they didn't.

Shearer

So this satisfied something of that need?

Hayakawa

Yes. Harry Williams was out there teaching history, and there was one other guy teaching geography. I've forgotten his name. But there were several of us extension teachers going from town to town teaching in Wausau, Antigo, Rhinelander, and Merrill. They had classes like that all around the state.

---

Shearer

Did you teach in a different center every day, or what was your schedule like?

Hayakawa

Well, in Wausau I taught at a classroom in the local normal school. One of those times it seems to me we taught behind the fire department. In Rhinelander, we had a classroom in the high school if I remember correctly.

Shearer

So the students were--

Hayakawa

Were high school graduates.

Shearer

High school graduates, and came from families of modest means?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Were they from farming communities particularly, or were they just--

Hayakawa

No, both. Townspeople in Wausau, Rhinelander.

Teaching Approach

Shearer

What sort of approach did you take to teaching these students?

Hayakawa

Same thing you did at Madison when you taught freshman English, which meant composition and a certain amount of reading of essays and short stories that they were asked to understand. That, in turn, led to their writing. I put a lot of emphasis at that time on their telling me in their papers about their own communities. That is, it was very strange how so many people feel that their dumb little town is not worth writing about. I asked them to observe what actually was in it, and write about the things that gave the town an economic raison d'etre. Their particular festivals and civic events.

Mrs. Hayakawa

And you pointed out that the authors of the books they were reading had used their experiences to make stories.

Hayakawa

Yes, you make literature out of the very place you know best.

Shearer

Yes. What authors did you focus on?

Hayakawa

I don't remember many, but I do remember Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth, is that one of his books?

---

Shearer

Yes, is this the Norwegian author?

Hayakawa

Yes. But he did write descriptions of life in the Midwest, where all those Swedes came. I also had them read Sinclair Lewis. Who else? I've forgotten.

Shearer

Any Oliver Wendell Holmes? I'm just thinking of the subject of your Ph.D.

Hayakawa

No, that's too far east.

Shearer

How did you arrive at that orientation that literature comes from the soil, the memories of childhood, the town that you grew up in?

Hayakawa

I don't know that it came from anywhere; you always wrote what you knew best.

Shearer

I understand that what you did was called circuit teaching--

Hayakawa

Circuit riding.

Shearer

I guess this went on all through the year, including the winter months. That must have been a challenge with the snow.

Hayakawa

Well, I certainly learned a lot about driving over it [laughs]. The roads were very, very well kept by snow-clearing teams, but, nevertheless, you got in a storm every now and then. At least once, maybe twice, the car would just skid right off the road into the ditch, and I had to wait for someone to come and pull me out.

Mrs. Hayakawa

There was always, for months at a time, a layer of ice that never was scraped off. You learned to drive on ice, and it's something that stands me in good stead even here when people in front of me are skidding around, and I can still remember how to drive on a skiddy road. People in Wisconsin just went ahead and drove. At first I was surprised that people never used chains. They became used to the ice. They learned to pump the brakes gently and not lock the wheels. But even the best drivers sometimes landed in a ditch. But there was a lot of snow in the ditch, so it cushioned the shock. [laughter]

Shearer

Do you remember any particular adventures along the route of your circuit riding?

Hayakawa

Fortunately, there were no adventures.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

People you picked up? I bet you picked up people. I wasn't there. He met a lot of people, giving them rides. You did that in those days.

Hayakawa

Yes. No, I don't remember enough about that to recall any particular encounters of that kind. But I did get to be friendly with the Cloverbelt Cooperative people. That was a cooperative society that owned their own service stations.

Mrs. Hayakawa

In Wausau, wasn't it?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Was this your first experience with cooperatives?

Hayakawa

Well, we knew about them before that. We were both interested in cooperatives.

Mrs. Hayakawa

But you joined because, first of all, it was a place that I guess you bought a lot of gas, and they were townspeople who owned it, and they presumably gave patronage dividends at the end of the year, which I think they did at that time.

Shearer

And were prices also cheaper?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, the principle was selling at market prices. To shop there, you didn't have to be a member. But it was a congenial thing. We went to their potluck suppers and met a lot of people there.

Shearer

I imagine you bought a lot of gas.

Hayakawa

We sure did.

Community Acceptance

Shearer

Did you accompany Don?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Hayakawa

We got married in '37.

Mrs. Hayakawa

We weren't married until '37, so the first year he was teaching I didn't go with him. He was already a member of that co-op, I think, when I went up there. I remember because I was being introduced as the new bride to all these very friendly people. Then, yes, I always went along with him. We'd stay overnight,

---

and sometimes we'd stay in hotels. That was less often. We'd get invited to stay in somebody's house, and it became a tradition, and there was no way to go anywhere else. I can't remember whose house it was; we always went to somebody's house.

Hayakawa

Did we stay with the Petersons in Rhinelander?

Mrs. Hayakawa

The Petersons, that's right. Always had to go there. They were very hospitable.

Shearer

This sounds like a century ago, with the schoolteacher residing for some weeks at a time with the local families.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, exactly. We stayed overnight, and they would supply dinner, the same excellent dinner--a pot roast--every time. She would give us a fine breakfast, too, and send us off. They had two sons, almost college age. One of the sons had the idea of starting a paper, a magazine for high school editors of high school newspapers. He was a very energetic young man. So he started this, and he asked me to edit it. I had nothing else to do, so I was always stepping into something like that. So I took this on. It was a quarterly, I guess. I was only four or five years out of high school as an editor of a paper, so I did it for a year.

Shearer

That's a very interesting way in to a town's life. Was there any instance of raised eyebrows because of the two of you as an interracial couple?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I can remember only--excuse me, but I'm better at remembering these little things to jog his memory. You'll come in, Don. But the only time I remember anything was when we were looking around Antigo for a place to rent, a room or a small apartment, and I think it was there that we answered the ad in the paper. We went to a house. It wasn't too prepossessing, and a fat and not too prepossessing woman came to the door. We said, "We came to see about the room you advertised." She opened the door and she looked, and she said, "It's too unusual." She closed the door in our faces. [laughter] I can still remember the expression on her face!

Shearer

"Too unusual."

Mrs. Hayakawa

But otherwise, we had absolutely no trouble at all.

Shearer

That's remarkable. Now this is a town of, what, 10,000 in population?

Mrs. Hayakawa

These towns were between ten and twenty thousand.

---

Shearer

That's very interesting. I'm thinking back to your account, Marge, of your family's response, and your parents both being somewhat educated and in touch with the larger world. Then you and Don go into these very small communities and find acceptance as an interracial couple, as far as you can tell.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. And they [my parents] got their ideas out of books and dramas.

Shearer

I'm interested in that because it reminds me of something from Senator Hayakawa's book, Language in Thought and Action [4th edition, 1978], that has to do with the difficulty some people have separating characters in a play or characters in a movie from the actors who play the parts.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't think they had known anybody who had actually had any problems. They hadn't known any people with interracial marriages, but there were always stories of suicides and everything dramatic that happened that got into legend and newspapers and imprinted on the minds of people. They didn't mind if it was somebody else, but for their own daughter to step into a danger like this, who knows how she was going to wreck her life?

My father once observed a waiter who had a superior or a disapproving expression on his face when he was waiting on us and Don was traveling with us. Later my father commented, and it really got under his skin that this person had looked so disapproving. I couldn't help reacting: "You were the person who taught me not to worry about what other people thought in the face of your own convictions."

Hayakawa

You haven't told me about this.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think I told you about that a year later. It was about as bad a set-to I ever had with my father. I was disappointed in him and he in me. I felt sorry for him because I realized that his reaction was out of concern for me. So it was a difficult situation, and he would have been much less understanding than my mother about our marriage four years later. However, he died that year. Then my problem became leaving my mother alone.

Shearer

That is a hard one.

Mrs. Hayakawa

That's a very hard one. But she and Don later became best of friends.

Shearer

That's a happy resolution!

---

Working on the Middle English Dictionary

Shearer

So, by the time you were married, you, Don, had finished work on the Middle English dictionary?

Hayakawa

Yes, just about.

Shearer

Can you describe a little bit of what that involved, your work on that?

Hayakawa

Well, we had to read very carefully an enormous number of books written in Middle English, and one book I remember [laughing] having to read and understand is The Treatise on the Fistula in Ano.

Shearer

Would you care to translate that, please?

Hayakawa

Yes. Yes, it was some kind of disorder of the anus--

Shearer

[laughing] It sounded like that, but I didn't want to assume anything.

Hayakawa

I had to read that and take quotations out of it to show how words were used in pre-Chaucerian English. I read a lot of other things as well, but that's the one great piece of literature that stands out in my memory. [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

You had that book, I think, as your assignment when you came and visited me in Evansville. [laughter]

Shearer

I remember in Language in Thought and Action, you explained that the writer of a dictionary is a historian and not a lawgiver, and that it's a collection of contexts, and a recording of usages of words. Did this formulation come to you in the course of your working on this dictionary?

Hayakawa

Well, that was just the rule we went by, as soon as I started working for the Middle English dictionary. Incidentally, working for the Middle English dictionary entailed two different kinds of tasks. One is I actually went to the University of Michigan where the project was being conducted--

Shearer

This was under Thomas Knott?

Hayakawa

Thomas Knott, yes. I actually went there and took a course with him on lexicography. But before that, and after that, I did a lot of dictionary work by mail order. That is, they would say to me, "We want you to read such-and-such a text in Middle

---

English and pick out the words we need to record for the dictionary." And so I got further instruction on these subjects when I was in summer school at the University of Michigan. But otherwise, I was off in the wild somewhere in northern Wisconsin, reading some crazy Middle English text, medical treatises--and I've forgotten the other books we read--poetry and so on, to pick up what words were being used in Middle English at that time.

In writing a dictionary, what you do is get a three-by-five card like this, and you put the word and the exact quotation in which that word appears, writing it down then, indicating its source. You collect simply thousands of those cards, and then ultimately you sort them all out and find how all these words are used. I went all through Middle English texts, including medical texts.

Shearer

That seems extraordinary. I guess this was also a time when people were concerned about health and the body.

Hayakawa

Yes. Well, of course, they had books on medical matters, they had books on hunting, on plants, etc. I just happened to get these medical texts, among other things. But you do that to this very day with Modern English. You find a word that you think has not been well defined before, or a novel word or a new word, and you take the whole sentence in which it appears, and put it on the card, and ultimately it goes into a dictionary as the fruit of your research work.

Shearer

You say that one category of literature that you were reading was hunting. I'm wondering if group nouns had their origin in that. Venery is hunting, and we have covey of quail and brace of hare, and so on. Was this a notable category of words in Middle English?

Hayakawa

I don't know that we ever categorized them that way. We knew that animals came in different kinds of groups. There would be one word for ducks and another word for a collection of fish or a collection of birds and so on.

Shearer

I was given a book once in which some of the more lovely and unusual group nouns were listed, and one was "a murmuration of starlings."

Hayakawa

Yes. Well, I've often been a little suspicious of a book of that kind. If the word appears only in that dictionary and nowhere else-- [laughs]

---

Shearer

I wonder. Do you think that it might be a little bit too poetical to be true?

Hayakawa

Yes.

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V Introduction to General Semantics

Shearer

When did your interest in semantics develop? I think we were talking about the time of 1937, 1938. What was it that led you to this subject?

Hayakawa

I think Stuart Chase's The Tyranny of Words had a lot to do with it.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Well, Stuart Chase must have been writing about the same time as Korzybski in the early thirties, late twenties?

Hayakawa

Yes. Stuart Chase jumped from subject to subject. He was a popularizer. That's nothing against him particularly; it's just that he's not a specialist in any one particular field. But his book, The Tyranny of Words, was really a kind of introduction to semantics. Although I don't know if he would have used that word.

Shearer

When did the word "semantics," or general semantics, come into usage, general usage, or even academic usage?

Hayakawa

Well, I think as a learned word there was already a field among French scholars called la semantique.

##

Shearer

We're talking about the French school of la semantique.

Hayakawa

La semantique is essentially a scientific study of the meanings of words. Furthermore, there was a book called The Meaning of Mean by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, which was a pioneer work in what came to be known as semantics.

Shearer

But you had read The Meaning of Meaning?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes.

---

Shearer

And did you view this as semantics? Was it then known as or discussed as semantics, the learned term?

Hayakawa

I don't know who started to use the word. The word la semantique had already gotten some circulation in France, obviously. But the place where it got its most powerful reinforcement was in the lectures of Count Alfred Korzybski, who originated the subject called general semantics.

Shearer

How did general semantics differ from semantics?

Hayakawa

Well, semantics was always, up to the time when Korzybski came along, a linguistic study. Korzybski took it far beyond that. Korzybski's general semantics had to do with reacting, interpreting, the events, the language, the actions and behavior of people, and how human beings interact with each other. General semantics ultimately--this is taking a big jump here--develops into a whole theory of sanity.

Shearer

And so Korzybski's Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics, published in 1933, expounded on this new interpretation.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Mrs. Hayakawa

That has disappeared from your shelves. [bringing books] Here are the only two--I looked in all the other language sections, too.

[pauses to scan books]

Shearer

So you were saying that semantics before Korzybski was rooted pretty firmly in the study of linguistics.

Hayakawa

That's right.

Shearer

And then Korzybski took it beyond that to place the subject, or maybe reinterpret it as behavior, in the world?

Hayakawa

Well, behavior doesn't quite--. That is, you can have a meaningful reaction to somebody before he says a word: the expression on his face, his threatening gesture, his fidgetiness, and so on. So that, semantic reaction is whatever reaction you have.

Shearer

Would it be fair to say that his contribution was in acknowledging semantic reactions, which are rooted in emotion, judgment, and opinion? And describing a way to detach the

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emotions and the judgments and the inferences from the words themselves?

Hayakawa

Yes. Well, the last part that you said about detaching and so on, that didn't even come into it. Semantic reaction is essentially any reaction except the involuntary. That is, you walk into somebody's apartment which is a mess, and you say, "This is a mess. Why don't they clean things up around here?" etc. In a sense, that's a semantic reaction. You've applied a meaning to the situation in front of you. Or else you walk into someone else's living room and say, "Isn't that artistic?" etc. So semantic reaction is the quite spontaneous attribution of meaning to a situation.

[Mrs. H. enters]

Korzybski's Seminars

Shearer

Did you first encounter Korzybski's work in his book Science and Sanity?

Hayakawa

Yes. Let me see. I went to summer session at the University of Michigan, studying with Thomas Knott and others, and a number of people at that time--students, especially graduate students, including me--had questions to ask about general semantics of Alfred Korzybski. We'd been hearing about it. Professor Knott and the other professors there said, "Well, we don't know anything about it; we've just begun to hear about it." So at the end of that summer session, I went to Chicago and dropped in to see Korzybski himself.

But before doing that, I had given a couple of sessions to our linguistics class at the University of Michigan. I so indicated to Korzybski when I met him, that I had lectured once or twice on general semantics--what it was about. He greeted me very cordially, and said, [in heavy Polish accent] "You have been giving lectures on general semantics at the University of Michigan, and you don't know a God-damn thing about it!" [laughter] And he smiled. I just laughed. We got along fine from there on. But as I said, there was no one else to say anything about general semantics. At least I had read the book. [laughs]

Anyway, we became pretty good friends after that. Later, I became a disobedient, disloyal son.

---

Shearer

How did that happen?

Hayakawa

See if this sounds right to you, Peters. I don't like to hear the same lecture twice, and still less do I like to hear the same lecture the third time. Korzybski had a terrible way of feeling that what he had to say was so important you've got to listen to it a second time, and a third time, and a fourth time, and every time I found myself in a situation where I had to listen to the same stuff again, I would go to sleep on him. [laughs] He would get mad as hell!

Mrs. Hayakawa

Blatantly and openly asleep!

Shearer

And this was in graduate seminars?

Hayakawa

It was in the seminar at the Institute of General Semantics, which is in an apartment in Chicago.

Mrs. Hayakawa

They had a building, a rather nice building, southside, and I guess he lived there, and then he had a staff of two assistants and a secretary who would come in, and they had the downstairs fitted up as a lecture room, and offices. This was the Institute of General Semantics.

Shearer

Did the institute have its founding with his arrival on campus?

Hayakawa

He was not connected with the University of Chicago campus.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Not on any campus. He was on his own, nonacademic. He wrote this huge tome. I should bring that up; where is that? Where is Science and Sanity?

Hayakawa

That's downstairs.

Shearer

So when you had heard of his theories, you hadn't heard through the usual academic grapevine? He was kind of a maverick--

Hayakawa

Well, we read Stuart Chase who wrote about Korzybski. I had already read Korzybski by the time I saw him.

Shearer

So were the other people in this class with you graduate students? Or were they people off the street who were interested in this subject?

Mrs. Hayakawa

You mean in Korzybski's--?

Shearer

Yes.

---

Hayakawa

They were a strange collection. There were people who were undergoing psychotherapy somewhere or other. There were others who were themselves psychologists, and medical men. Who else was there?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Seekers after truth, who had somehow or other hit upon it. Somebody's enthusiasm passed on through conversations and the kind of contact Don had with the University of Michigan; somebody outlined it and people just went, maybe out of curiosity, out of hope that it offered a new approach. It was a mixed bag of people at every one of those seminars. From scholars to nuts.

Hayakawa

And psychologists.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Scholars of all kinds, psychologists, medical doctors--

Hayakawa

People like Irving Lee and Wendell Johnson were very serious scholars, yes.

Mrs. Hayakawa

People who could use it in their disciplines. It really opened a lot of avenues.

Shearer

You said that Korzybski took a leap from general semantics to the notion of health and sanity. Can you--

Hayakawa

No, general semantics includes all that.

Shearer

I see. That was his emphasis?

Hayakawa

See, pure semantics would be the definition of words with other words. But general semantics means how your whole system reacts to the verbal world around you, or even the nonverbal world. It implies that meaning is not only the words you use to describe other words, but the way in which your blood pressure--the flushing of your face--are part of the response that you make towards communications of all kinds. Involuntary tightening of your fists, and so on, all that is part of what Korzybski would call a semantic reaction.

Shearer

And what some practitioners or theoreticians would call body language?

Hayakawa

Body response. It's the total response.

Shearer

Is this where you made contact with Menninger?

Hayakawa

No, that comes a little later. Karl Menninger wrote a book, Love Against Hate which, in 1942, I'm pretty sure of that date,

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I reviewed very favorably in the Chicago Sun Book Review Section. That resulted in an exchange of correspondence between Dr. Karl and myself. By the way, Dr. Karl is in his nineties and alive and well.

Shearer

What was it, if you can isolate one or two things generally, about Korzybski's theories that really set you on fire, that drew you to the institute? What was it that you wanted from him?

Hayakawa

Well, basically I would say that there's a big, big difference between, say, defining words with other words, like saying war is a conflict between two or more nations, but war in a sense of how your whole system, your blood pressure, your heartbeat and so on, are all roiled up. The total semantic reaction to a novel situation, or to any situation, is far more than a matter of lexicography. It's a matter of the whole human response. And so, general semantics deals not with the dictionary definition of a word, but with the whole system of reactions to the world and all it contains, all the events that happen to you.

Shearer

How did you in those early months, early years, take hold of this idea, or how did this idea take hold of you?

Hayakawa

I read Science and Sanity before I met him. One hell of a big book. [laughs]

Shearer

But you said just a minute ago that you were sort of a "bad boy" in his class, and I guess I'm assuming that you mean you did more than nod off when he was so repetitive. You maybe carried his ideas further afield or in different directions?

Hayakawa

No, I don't think I ever particularly argued with him or disputed him, but he felt it to be a tremendous insult if you fell asleep on him.

Mrs. Hayakawa

But also, he thought you didn't stick to his own outline of the Science and Sanity. You brought in other ideas and applied his theory in your own way, and that was kind of heresy.

Hayakawa

That's true. He wanted you to be--

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was a case of a leader casting out heretics ultimately.

Shearer

Because what he had apparently wanted was disciples?

Hayakawa

Exactly, yes. Faithful, nonargumentative, pious disciples, spreading the word of Korzybski.

---

Shearer

I don't think I've ever read anything that describes you as an obedient, faithful, meek follower of anybody!

Hayakawa

[laughs] That just describes my relationship with her [Mrs. H.]. [laughter] Obedient, faithful.

Shearer

I'm going to just mention a few of the ideas that I have encountered in your book, and see if you care to comment on the extent to which they were extensions of Korzybski's or something of your own slant. "General semantics is not an academic subject, but a method of behaving in the world."

Hayakawa

It seems to me that general semantics simply is a prescription for sanity. That is, your little boy comes home with a bleeding nose. There are all sorts of reactions you can have, including a sane one, and including several un-sane ones, too. In Korzybski's book, Science and Sanity, sanity for him is a tremendously important concept. How to behave, or to what degree do you behave in an un-sane manner, and there's just all sorts of un-sane ways of behaving. [laughs]

General semantics is, in a way, a prescription for sanity, and one of the very fundamental ideas in it is the delayed reaction. You can fly off the handle at once, or burst into tears at once, etc., or you can delay your reaction, see what it is you're reacting to, and understand it better in its full context. Propaganda and advertising try to create immediate reactions in you. The humane way of responding to practically anything is a delayed reaction. Ask yourself, what does this particular word or action mean in this context? So general semantics is a prescription for sanity.

Shearer

Later on in your writings, you mention that language has a value, in terms of social cohesion, for example, comments about the weather and then further comments about the weather--not intrinsically interesting--stimulate "agreement statements," which kind of bind the two speakers together. And sometimes unoriginal thoughts or commentary are reassuring to your partner in speech, because they seem familiar. I'm wondering if advertisers make considerable use of this observation, too.

Hayakawa

Of course, advertising also encourages you to make what we call signal reactions towards a favored brand name or whatever. [laughs] I remember this girl I met on the train who was very pretty and had a very, very lower class Boston accent. She explained to me that "I never use nothing but Yardleys." [laughter] There's a signal reaction.

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##

Shearer

--It seems to me that there is a liberating effect of detaching the meaning of words from the accompanying emotions, judgment, and inferences, and that this finds expression in your discussions of ethnic and racial prejudice?

Hayakawa

I think the things I say do apply in those circumstances.

Shearer

Were you aware of or interested in particularly the social and political consequences of training people to distinguish among reports and inferences and judgments in language?

Hayakawa

I'm going to bring Hitler into this at this moment. There was a hypnotic quality to his speeches, his way of using words that stirred the deepest emotions of German patriotism. In a way, much of general semantics is a reaction against the kind of control over masses of people through training them to have certain reactions to certain words, like "damn Jews." [laughs] "Our great German fatherland," etc. And Hitler was very, very skillful at manipulating those words and getting audiences all riled up, raving with patriotic enthusiasm. Damn skillful. I don't know if I'm answering your question.

There seemed to be something peculiarly magical about the way Hitler orated. We've had no one here quite like him. Although Father [Charles Edward] Coughlin was like that, wasn't he?Father Coughlin made radio addresses and published a magazine, Social Justice, in which he expressed pro-Nazi opinions and anti-Semitic remarks.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, he had something of that. There were enough of them around that you could generalize that the danger was here as well as abroad.

Hayakawa

Yes.

The Evolution of Language in Action

Shearer

At this point, you were absorbing and elaborating Korzybski's theories, and this was '37 and '38, and you were also teaching at University of Wisconsin Extension. How did these ideas find their way into the courses which you were teaching?

---

Hayakawa

Well, something very important happened in 1939. There were something like two thousand or more entering freshmen at the University of Wisconsin that year. The teachers of freshmen English--if there were twenty-five to a classroom, how many classes would there be for two thousand? There would be eighty sections, wouldn't there? Anyway, there were a hell of a lot of sections of freshman English. The instructors whose job it was to teach freshman English all had different theories as to how freshman English should be taught. One group thought that we should base the freshman English course on a program advocated by President Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago, the Great Books Program, a selection of masterpieces of world literature and philosophy emphasizing the ideas that influenced Western thought.

Another--this was the politically highly self-conscious group, and Bill Card was the leader of that--said we should be studying contemporary events, current events. Hell was breaking loose in Germany, here and there and everywhere. So freshman English should be based upon learning to write good essays, but the subject matter should be current events, so that people would get caught up with the world. [laughs]

The third position was our own, my own--

Shearer

And did you stand alone? Was it your position alone?

Hayakawa

No, it wasn't my position alone. The freshman class of almost two thousand was broken up into sections of twenty-five students apiece. One-third of the sections were placed in the Great Books course; others went into the current events course; a third group got into the semantics group.

Shearer

And the students were able to choose which of the groups?

Hayakawa

I don't remember if they chose or not. [laughs] I was wondering about that the other day. I think they just found themselves in one of those three categories. I'll go downstairs and show you this later, but Wright Thomas was the head of freshman English at that time, a younger professor. He was delighted at having all these three categories. It was during that summer of '39 that I wrote the first draft of Language in Action. We had it mimeographed and spiral-bound by the College Typing Company. I've got a copy downstairs in my office; I'll show it to you. That was the first edition of Language in Action.

Shearer

So, for your students in the fall of 1939, it was hot off the mimeograph machine.

---

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

So there must have been, what, at least ten or fifteen other instructors who were going along with your approach?

Hayakawa

Yes, more than that. A whole bunch of them.

Shearer

So how did Language in Action become widely accepted?

Hayakawa

Well, this is wonderful. It was very, very wonderful. We had enough copies made through the College Typing Company, a Madison printing firm, for one-third of the freshman class. But word of the book got around, and somewhere between twelve and fifteen publishers' representatives bought copies of the book and sent them back to their head offices.

Shearer

How did they know enough to do that?

Hayakawa

Salesmen talked among themselves and with teachers. They heard about it, through talking about it. There was enough discussion, informal discussion, "What's this new subject, semantics?"

Mrs. Hayakawa

Of course, Stuart Chase's book had helped.

Hayakawa

Stuart Chase, yes. The Tyranny of Words came out--yes, that's right. His book came out in '38. So that certainly started the tidal wave.

But anyway, the mimeographed first draft, Language in Action, was a spiral-bound book. Instead of being printed for one-third of those 2,000 students who were going into our semantics group, the book was bought for the entire freshman class at Syracuse University. Word got around; I didn't know anybody at Syracuse University! They just heard about it. They ordered two thousand copies of it from the College Typing Company. Syracuse went for it in a big way. They invited me to speak at a convocation with a huge audience. I had never addressed such a large group. I was scared to death. Other colleges also ordered the book.

Shearer

I presume that you got royalties from that.

Hayakawa

I suppose I did. [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

I'm sure that you did.

---

Hayakawa

I don't remember how much. But anyway, publishers' representatives also bought the book from that little mimeography company, and they sent it back to their head offices, saying, hey, let's get this book. When the time came to decide who was going to publish this book as a commercial publisher, I had the damnedest time deciding among Houghton Mifflin; Little, Brown; and Harcourt, Brace; Harper and Brothers, and so on.

Shearer

I should have such trouble!

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. You decided not on the basis of the kind of contract they gave you or the amount of money; you decided on Harcourt, Brace because they published one of your favorite authors.

Hayakawa

Yes, e. e. cummings. [laughter]

Shearer

Before you go into that part of the story, what was the reaction of your students, who were studying from your spiral-bound notebook for the first time in 1939? Were they excited by this new curriculum?

Hayakawa

Oh, as I gather it, the students were very excited. They were just delighted. They really were delighted. They found it a completely fresh approach to freshman English.

Shearer

How did your colleagues regard this splash?

Hayakawa

Well, some of my very good friends were delighted, and some of my enemies were contemptuous. Like Bill Card.

Shearer

What did your enemies say? What was their gripe?

Hayakawa

I don't know. They weren't talking to me; they were talking to each other. [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, there was always a section of his colleagues who were scornful of him. The first time I met him was when he was at the Arden Club, and there was a division between those with strong social consciousness and outright leftish motivations, and there were some real Communist party members in the group. And then there were people who believed that the important thing was to become involved in political activity, and tended to move their students in that direction. They were very scornful of the people in the department who were more interested in literature or in the personal development or some other aspects. Don was flexible and open to ideas, and he was impossible to categorize. And so Don was on the "wrong side" for at least a third of the department or more.

---

Hayakawa

I should have been joining them in the fight against fascism.

Shearer

Well, it's very interesting. Though when you moved from American literature and English into general semantics, I would assume that that would have bridged some of these apparent differences. Or did you find that to be the case?

Hayakawa

[laughs] That particular group of political activists on the left thought this was all irrelevant. They had no use for me. People like Bill Card and Macklin Thomas and so on.

Shearer

These were not your supporters?

Hayakawa

Colleagues. No, these were colleagues in the English Department who were opposed to my position on almost everything.

Shearer

Language in Action came to be used at the University of Wisconsin and Syracuse University, but this was at a time when you were still teaching in extension. There seems to be a certain irony in this.

Hayakawa

I don't know if there's any particular irony. I had a job in extension, and I just stayed with the job.

Shearer

Would you rather have been teaching at the university proper?

Hayakawa

No, I was never discontent with that extension job, was I?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, you found it extraordinarily interesting, being out there in the communities in touch with people, and somehow it was more real and stimulating than having classes coming in and being part of the endless machine. It was much more human, I think, and you knew what kind of people they were, what their background was--

Hayakawa

And their parents. I often met their parents.

Mrs. Hayakawa

And their parents. No, nothing wrong with that. It just didn't have the prestige.

Shearer

Did you find that your prestige rose upon publication of Language in Action or the use of this book in universities?

Mrs. Hayakawa

In certain factions, yes; in other factions, no! [laughter]

Hayakawa

I'm sure some of them felt that if it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection, it must be junk.

---

The Move to Chicago

Shearer

How did you regard this--I don't know how to say it without attaching my judgment--this dislocation of your teaching in one branch of the university, and then your work being disseminated in the other? Were you ever interested in making a change?

Hayakawa

Well, I made the change. We went to Chicago.

Shearer

What prompted the move from Madison?

Hayakawa

Well, I got another job.

Shearer

Had you been sort of looking for another job for some time before that point?

Hayakawa

If you're a teaching assistant and you got your Ph.D. at the same university, all of us had to look elsewhere for the next move. They didn't want to keep their own Ph.D.s. So we were encouraged to look elsewhere, and I got this job at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Mrs. Hayakawa

We went to Chicago in 1939, and you were getting acquainted and working with Korzybski and so on. Now the book actually came out in 1941, and so I guess you were rewriting that in those years.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

And working with Korzybski?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, to a degree. He never showed his work to Korzybski, because Korzybski never looked at anybody else's work. [laughing]

Shearer

But when you arrived at Chicago, Illinois Institute of Technology, you were kind of riding this cloud of glory. Your book was going to be published by Harcourt, Brace. Were you going to use this in your classes? What were the expectations?

Hayakawa

Well, I went to the Illinois Institute of Technology with a salary of $1,900 a year.

Shearer

I see; a small cloud of glory.

Hayakawa

[laughs]

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

So you were using it in your classes in Chicago in the spiral-bound form then--while you were revising it you were using it and sort of perfecting it and changing it.

Book-of-the-Month Club Selection

Shearer

Well, you chose Harcourt, Brace because they had published e.e. cummings. Whether this was your business acumen or your leading with your heart, was that borne out as a successful decision?

Hayakawa

Well, what happened is so wonderful. This is 1939, but representatives of Harcourt, Brace and all the other companies took along a copy of the book. I started to get offers from various companies to publish the book. Harcourt, Brace not only chose it, but Book-of-the-Month Club selected it, the first textbook they had ever selected. It came out as a dual selection with George Stewart's book called Storm. And they became a dual selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club for December 1941, which is the same time that the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor! [laughs]

Shearer

What timing! Tell me how Language in Action was selected by the Book-of-the-Month Club. You had chosen Harcourt, Brace, and they had taken it upon themselves, is this correct, to--?

Hayakawa

This Book-of-the-Month Club business was sort of roundabout. Dorothy Canfield Fisher was one of the selectors of books for the club.

Mrs. Hayakawa

She was a famous writer, wasn't she?

Hayakawa

Yes. But the person who tipped her off was David Fairchild, you know, the plant expert, who was an elderly man by that time. Korzybski and his colleagues told David Fairchild about Language in Action, and David Fairchild, in turn, tipped Miss Fisher.

Mrs. Hayakawa

She was a famous novelist--

Hayakawa

Who was on the selection committee for the Book-of-the-Month Club.

Shearer

So it was word of mouth. And then did Harcourt, Brace sort of represent you, and offer it to Book-of-the-Month Club or negotiate that?

Hayakawa

I think Harcourt, Brace was as surprised as I at this turn of events.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was a double selection; they occasionally gave double selections when a book was slender. Storm would have been a very popular selection, but it isn't a big book. He [Stewart] was very popular at that time. So people got both a fiction and a non-fiction book together. Language in Action would not have been a big enough book to make a selection, too, so this was a wonderful arrangement that they happened to come out together.

Book Announcement on Eve of Pearl Harbor Attack

Mrs. Hayakawa

But, you must tell them that the timing of that was important, because the announcement of the books was sent out in November, with the deadline for rejection the first of December. The attack on Pearl Harbor took place on December 7.

The book came out and was distributed at Pearl Harbor time, when a book by an author with a Japanese name would have been dead in the water if the announcement had come out two weeks later.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

A friend of mine who recalls the book and how popular it was in those days described sort of a middle class--well, not necessarily just middle class--but a movement, with clubs being formed, discussion groups, and everybody having copies in their homes. I'm wondering if--

Hayakawa

[laughs] Weren't they paying attention to the war?

Shearer

That's right! How could this be? Did you anticipate anything like the popularity of your book?

Hayakawa

Oh, no, of course not.

Shearer

Was it a surprise to you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't remember that degree--

Hayakawa

--of enthusiasm, no.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Of organized popularity. It certainly sold well, continued to sell well.

Shearer

How do you account for the fact that it sold as well as it did?

---

Hayakawa

Damn good book! [laughter]

Shearer

But I mean, even a good book, in the war years, and the beginning right after war was declared--when people you would think would have their minds thoroughly occupied elsewhere.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I remember, just to fill in some background on this item, on December 7th I was in a meeting of the co-op credit union. We heard this dreadful news, and then we went on with our meeting. [laughs]

Shearer

Well, it was so far away. Hard to imagine, perhaps.

Mrs. Hayakawa

We realized it was completely going to change everything, but here we were, right in the middle with a meeting to do. I think people just went ahead with what they could in their lives until their lives were disrupted by being drafted or something. It wasn't the total involvement that one thinks.

Shearer

I'm going to suggest that we stop for today, and take up the war years as the next interview. How does that sound to you?

Hayakawa

It makes perfectly good sense, except for the fact that I have to dig into my memory a while for what went on during the war years.

Shearer

We've jumped around a little bit--I actually have the Chicago years, and I was going to ask you about that first.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

And about your life apart from the IIT [Illinois Institute of Technology], and what it was like in the neighborhoods, what Chicago was like to live in. I think the racial tensions were pretty severe in those times. And your work on the Chicago Defender.

[Mr. and Mrs. H. conferring]

Mrs. Hayakawa

During that time, you were writing for Chicago Defender, and you were going to black nightclubs--

Shearer

To hear jazz--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Getting to know jazz musicians.

Hayakawa

That's also the time I went to the Menninger Clinic as a lecturer and observer. It was about 1943.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Don't forget about Poetry magazine.

Hayakawa

Poetry magazine, sure. Chicago Defender, I started that in 1942.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He had for any number of years a weekly column, and how on earth we ever did all we did, I don't know.

---

VI The Chicago Years

---

##

Shearer

Unless there's something else you'd like to say about teaching in Wisconsin, I'd like to move on to the Chicago years.

Hayakawa

It was a very great adventure, really. We got to know an awful lot of people, didn't we? In the city of Rhinelander, Marge and I were always invited to dinner with the Petersons. They'd treat us royally. One of their sons was in one of my classes.

Shearer

And that's how you got to know them, just because the student said, "I'd like you to meet my parents"?

Mrs. Hayakawa

That's right. They were so hospitable that they insisted on our coming every week, so we always had a big, hot dinner at noon with the best pot roast of beef, pot roast of pork, alternating. That was the menu. And rutabagas, excellently cooked. She was a marvelous cook. Coming in in this freezing, below-zero weather and having one of these wonderful hot meals. It just became a custom, so we couldn't get out of going. It was always where we ate.

Shearer

So you alternated between pot roast of beef and pot roast of pork?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, both delicious.

Shearer

You know, I neglected to ask you when you married, whether you began cooking Japanese style?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I had learned from him from the first time I met him. I think I went--a group from the Arden Club went to his house where he cooked sukiyaki for us. I learned how to cook sukiyaki during my freshman year.

Hayakawa

Before we were married.

Shearer

So you did some fairly elaborate cooking for yourself?

---

Hayakawa

Well, it wasn't very elaborate; it was very simple. But from her point of view at that time, it was pretty exotic.

Shearer

Simple but correct.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. Everybody wanted to taste Don's sukiyaki.

Shearer

And what about now?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes. We eat Japanese style almost half the time. He's fond of fish and rice, and Mark is fond of fish and rice, and Daisy is fond of fish and rice. I occasionally beg off of that menu, but otherwise we have that about three times a week, in various styles. There's a lot of ways to do things. I wish I were a better Japanese cook. I tried to learn from his mother when she came over and stayed with us for a while. His sisters are good cooks. We've always liked a variety of exotic foods, too, so I used to be good at curries and other such things, and those were my specialties. He'd do the Japanese cooking.

Shearer

Sounds like a very happy arrangement.

Teaching at Illinois Institute of Technology

Shearer

Now, going on to Chicago, when you took the position as associate professor at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Hayakawa

Well, I took a position as instructor and gradually moved up to associate professor.

Shearer

I see. You went in 1939. This was while you were in the last stages of completing Language in Action. You told me last time how it was chosen as Book-of-the-Month Club selection, but I'd like to get a little more background on what courses you were teaching.

Hayakawa

Essentially, most of the time, we taught freshman composition, which means we were teaching people grammar, spelling, etc., so they learned how to write, how to arrange things into paragraphs instead of just babbling on. That was good experience for me in organizing my own ideas, how prose ought to be organized. This whole matter of paragraph structure, sentence structure, logic, flow of ideas, and so on. I taught a lot of that to students.

Shearer

How did you make use of the notes or the book, as it was forming, of Language in Action in teaching these students?

---

Hayakawa

I don't recall very much about that. I'm sure when I was writing, I practiced on the students in lecture form. But I do remember that the Wisconsin students, many of whom were semi-rural or at least small-town people, didn't think it was worthwhile to write about their actual environment and the kind of people that were around them and what they did. I tried to get them to talk about the actualities of what they had experienced themselves. After all, that's the way any good novel gets started--

Shearer

To look at your own surroundings with fresh eyes?

Hayakawa

Yes. And see the significance of all these events and these friends, and their actions and behavior.

Rapport with Students

Shearer

When you went on to Chicago, how did your students differ?

Hayakawa

Oh, they were very, very different. When I went to Chicago I went to what was then called for only one year after I was there, Armour Institute of Technology, named after the Armour family, meat-packing people. Later it became the Illinois Institute of Technology. The Illinois Institute of Technology was a combination of Lewis Institute, which was a liberal arts college with no social status, absolutely none whatsoever, and Armour Institute of Technology, which also had no social status whatsoever. To get a little class in your life, you had to go to Northwestern or the University of Chicago.

I remember so many charming things. Armour Institute or as it later became, the Illinois Institute of Technology, was just a few blocks away from the Chicago White Sox ballpark. So we always took an interest in that, occasionally went to a game. Our students were definitely going towards an engineering degree. They had no damn use for literature. [laughs]

Shearer

Quite a challenge for an English literature teacher.

Hayakawa

Yes. But I just sort of kept pounding away at the fact that it doesn't matter that you're not going to grow up to be a poet or a novelist; you've got to be able to write clearly and intelligently about whatever it is you're doing.

Shearer

How did you win them over, or do you think you did?

---

Hayakawa

I think I did. I got to be very good friends with a lot of my students at that time. There were quite a few of those who were working class with not very educated backgrounds. There were a lot of "deese, dose, dat, and dem" among the young men. They were practically all young men that I taught, although later on there was a sprinkling of women, too, that became students there.

Anyway, this was a very exciting thing. It was less than two years after I got a job at Illinois Tech, and I had freshman English classes during that time.

Shearer

Where were you living at that time?

Hayakawa

We had an apartment on 67th Street.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Hayakawa

A nice enough part of town, sort of middle class. We lived in an apartment there.

Mrs. Hayakawa

One of those brick apartment buildings. In this case, it faced Jackson Park, so we had no apartments facing us. It was a nice, two-bedroom apartment in a very stodgy building, but very livable.

Shearer

Was it unusual for a professor to befriend his students?

Hayakawa

No, I don't think so. It really wasn't unusual. Particularly students who entered engineering, and that was the majority of our students, got to be very chummy with their engineering professors, because they had a common theme to work with, and something to talk about, lots to talk about. But I appealed to some very, very nice students, who were tired of talking about engineering all the damn time and wanted to talk about something else, about the rest of the world, about politics, about poetry--anything. I got along well with them. But the thing I remember so vividly was December 7, 1941, the day of Pearl Harbor, and one of my students called up and said, "Hey, Doc, are dey boddering ya?"

Shearer

Who did he mean? Not the Japanese--

Hayakawa

No! The white community around. With the nation at war with Japan, the students were afraid that maybe people were bothering us. Well, they weren't. But anyway, there was a whole delegation of, I guess, eight or ten students from the ethnic part of Chicago, the children of Slovak and Italian immigrants,

---

who were growing up and becoming adults in Chicago. They offered to come over and gang up and protect me from anti-Japanese demonstrations or anything that might happen.

Shearer

Isn't that something! So they expected that you would be endangered by anti-Japanese sentiment?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Did it occur?

Hayakawa

No, it didn't occur.

Shearer

In no way?

Hayakawa

In no way at all. [laughs] Chicago was pretty accustomed to all kinds of strange people turning up. On top of that, by that time I was known. I was writing book reviews for the Chicago Sun, and I had just become part of the community.

Shearer

So you never received any angry letters, hate mail, or anything like that?

Hayakawa

Nothing of the kind, nothing of the kind. Absolutely not.

Faculty Rivalry

Shearer

Who were the faculty members that you liked?

Hayakawa

Well, the head of our department was a man by the name of Walter Hendricks. He was a Quaker. I think he spent his lifetime being confused. [laughs] But I got along fine with him. I had one colleague whose name was Elder Olson, and he was as neurotic as the day is long.

Shearer

[laughs] Can you characterize his neuroses?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. Well, he was intensely jealous of me, very competitive. We didn't ever become friends, because he was always competing. Instead of respecting each other's work, being friends on that account. He always regarded me as a kind of threat.

Shearer

So he was someone that you remember, but not with any particular fondness?

---

Hayakawa

[laughs] No, not particular fondness. He was being so totally competitive against me. I wasn't being competitive at all; I was just trying to get along.

Impact of Language in Action

Shearer

Did the publication of the book and its selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club exacerbate this sense of rivalry between the two of you, or on his part?

Hayakawa

I've forgotten how he reacted. He wasn't very happy about it, I'm sure.

Mrs. Hayakawa

It must have been a stunning blow to all kinds of professors who wrote books, to have a book hit this kind of a jackpot. They had to have a strong reaction in some way or another. It was very unusual. I'm sure there was a lot of jealousy. Don has never been one to take particular note, or notice anybody being nasty or jealous; he is a serene kind of guy.

Shearer

Did it have any impact on your career? Were you moved up to associate professor soon after that?

Hayakawa

No, I went through the normal procedures, starting as an instructor, which is a very low grade for a guy who already had a Ph.D. But then I became assistant professor shortly after that, and went up to associate professor and so on. It was all fair enough. [laughs] But what I remember so much about the Book-of-the-Month Club selection, which was really hitting the jackpot, is that we bought that Nash convertible, that snappy-looking number--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes!

Hayakawa

I remember my colleagues in the English Department all looking out of the second-story window, looking at my Nash in the parking lot. [laughter] They were just green with envy!

Shearer

So it did impact your lifestyle, as people would say now; you were able to have a car, or have a new car--

Hayakawa

Well, I had always bought reasonably decent second-hand cars. Remember that green colored Nash that we had, the sedan?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. We bought it from the son of one of the executives of the Nash factory in Wisconsin. Don was used to living on a faculty

---

salary, and so he wasn't oriented toward buying--and I wasn't ever oriented to buying cars just for the love of cars. But this convertible was marvelous. We traveled west in it, with the top down. In those days, there was not as much carbon monoxide on the highways, and it was a real pleasure to have a convertible.

Shearer

I imagine a convertible in Chicago, too, was quite an unusual--or noticeable--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I don't know it was that noticeable, no. Nash and a lot of cars made good convertibles in those days. I think there were more of them proportionately than there are now.

Shearer

I gather that the salary for a lecturer, or even maybe for an assistant professor, was not all that much.

Hayakawa

I remember I started work there at $1,900 a year. It was better than that by the time of the Book Club--but it wasn't much more than $2,200, I'm sure.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, another reason for jealousy--I don't know if I should say this, but this is one part of the facts--is that my father had died before we were married, and in his will my brother and I received our share of his estate. He gave most to my mother, and then to us. So that padded out considerably the $1,900 of a faculty member. So that was probably another reason for jealousy, if people were jealous of Don, that he just had this little edge on consumption. But we didn't change our lifestyle. That convertible was about the only thing I can think of.

Shearer

Of the faculty members you remember, and who mattered to you or who impinged on you, were there any who were particularly significant in the field of semantics besides yourself?

Hayakawa

No, nobody in semantics. That is, my colleagues in semantics were at other institutions. It was a new field anyway. But we got a big boost from the fact that Stuart Chase wrote a popularization of language theories, including semantics. He wrote a best-seller called The Tyranny of Words, which was very good fun to read. That came along in 1938, just about the right time to help my book.

Shearer

Did the success of the book lead you to change your approach to teaching in any way? Did you incorporate more of what you had written about?

Hayakawa

Well, my students had to read my book. [laughter]

---

Shearer

How about the way your lectures were presented in the classroom?

Hayakawa

It was a lot of dialogue, there was a lot of class discussion. The classes were never very large.

Shearer

Was this unusual among your colleagues, that you would have that much give and take?

Hayakawa

Well, it would be sort of unusual compared to chemistry and engineering and other such classes, because there they were studying technical information--

##

Hayakawa

--but in my case, the back-and-forth interaction between the teacher and the students, and the open invitation always existing for the students either to raise questions or to bring up new topics of discussion and so on, that was commonplace in an English department. Not like an engineering course, where they just dealt out enormous amounts of factual matter to memorize and learn.

Shearer

Later, an article commented on the unstructured approach that you used in teaching a seminar at San Francisco State. [Joseph Cohen, in CTA Journal, January 1964] The writer was enchanted and disturbed and stimulated by your particular approach. I wonder if your technique was an outgrowth of your interest in Carl Rogers' client-based therapy?

Hayakawa

Carl Rogers, yes. Client-centered therapy. I was much influenced by Dr. Carl Rogers somewhat later on.

Shearer

You said you took some trips in your convertible. Were you invited to speak and travel and so forth as a result of the book's success?

Hayakawa

We drove out to California--

Mrs. Hayakawa

California. It seems to me there was some kind of speaking event that instigated this. We had a marvelous trip West, and there's nothing like traveling through the West in a convertible. We went to all the usual places. We must have taken a month to do the whole trip. We came to see San Francisco--

Hayakawa

But first of all, we went to Los Angeles. And there we met Vocha Fiske.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

They were people interested in semantics.

Hayakawa

They had some kind of small gathering.

Shearer

And Vocha Fiske, now. Can you describe--

Mrs. Hayakawa

[laughing] Nobody can describe Vocha Fiske.

Hayakawa

Well, first of all, she was red-headed, and she was extremely talkative, and very, very theatrical in her manners, gestures, way of talking to people. She treated me like some kind of guru, or spiritual leader, just arrived from the holy land, bringing new light and salvation.

Mrs. Hayakawa

She actually had been on the stage, hadn't she?

Hayakawa

Yes, she had been on the stage. She was an actress at one time. She never got over it.

Shearer

How did you come to meet her?

Hayakawa

How did we come to meet her?

Mrs. Hayakawa

She was at one of Korzybski's seminars.

Hayakawa

Oh, that's right.

Mrs. Hayakawa

And then she began to write and teach about Korzybski.

Hayakawa

And she knew, of course, that I was interested in semantics, because my book had already come out at that time. She sort of took over when we got to Los Angeles. She wanted to take over. Anyway, we stayed at the Hollywood Roosevelt.

Shearer

And how did you like it?

Hayakawa

Well, Vocha Fiske came to our room and said, "This won't do, this won't do." And she called the main office at once and said, "Don't you realize we have Dr. Hayakawa here?" [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

She was an impresario.

Hayakawa

And got us a more magnificent room right away.

Shearer

What happened to her?

Hayakawa

I don't know. She died considerably later.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

She went on to teaching and being active in semantics groups, didn't she?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't remember exactly how.

Hayakawa

She was an interesting person because she was halfway between being an interesting and serious student of general semantics, and the other half of her was kind of a nut that gets mixed up in any damn movement. The combination was fascinating.

Shearer

So you couldn't actually write her off as a scholar?

Hayakawa

No, that's right. But she was thoroughly, thoroughly theatrical.

Poetry: A Magazine of Verse

Shearer

I'm glad you remembered that.

Now, I would like to ask you about your life in Chicago. Who were your friends? What was your social milieu?

Hayakawa

Well, Marge got into Poetry magazine group almost immediately.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You got me into that. Don had visited Poetry magazine before, even when Harriet Monroe was alive. She was the founder of this longest lived poetry magazine in the English language. It was already that by the time we got there--founded in 1912, I think. Don was a contributor, and if you have contributed a poem once to Poetry magazine, you're a poet; you're a valued person. Poets were always dropping into the office, and Don, after we moved to Chicago, took me into the office. We went to pay a call. George Dillon was the editor then.

Hayakawa

Yes, before Peter.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes, before Peter De Vries. He was a poet who had a distinguished career but not widely recognized in the sense of sales. Most books of poems don't sell greatly. Anyway, he was a highly respected poet. We all went out to dinner with Geraldine Udell, who was the secretary and business manager and dated back to Harriet Monroe. She had been working for Poetry magazine for many years already. We all went out for Japanese dinner. There were a lot of Japanese and a few Japanese

---

restaurants around the near north side. The office was on 232 Erie Street, and for all I know, it's still there. We don't get the magazine any more.

On that fateful evening, I was offered a job. I probably said I was looking for something to do. Anyway, I was invited by Geraldine Udell and George Dillon to help at the magazine office. That connection lasted for many years. I was a volunteer. Geraldine got $25 a week. That was only a little lower than the normal wages for those times. She was a dedicated person. We kept close to Poetry magazine. I used to go down several times a week, help Geraldine open the mail, pass on the poems to the poetry editors, George Dillon and Peter De Vries, and the prose. I don't know how long it was before I was put in charge of the prose section.

But that meant discussing who should be asked to review a certain book and corresponding with contributors. And you had to have a long memory for who had fallen out with whom in that area. Geraldine had that kind of a memory, and she really knew.

Shearer

So knowledge of literary gossip is necessary?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, very important, because if you ask somebody to review his worst enemy, [laughing] you're sunk. So it was very interesting. People would come in, and we'd make these little spontaneous luncheons or dinner parties with all kinds of people who dropped into Poetry magazine. That lasted for many years, that connection. It was just a small part of our life but one of the enriching things. We kept in touch with Geraldine over the years. She must be in her mid-eighties now. I just wrote to her the other day and invited her to come for a visit. She was really a marvelously dedicated person.

Shearer

Don, at what point did you contribute your poem to Poetry, or was this just one of many poems that you contributed to them?

Hayakawa

No, I think I only got one poem into Poetry magazine.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You weren't writing poems by the time we went to Chicago.

Hayakawa

I wrote some essays for Poetry.

Shearer

Do you remember the poem that appeared in Poetry magazine?

Hayakawa

There was only one that appeared in that magazine.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You certainly have it among your collection of works, I'm sure. It was when you were writing poems in the old French forms.

Hayakawa

It wasn't a rondo or triolette or one of those. No. It was one little short poem.

Shearer

So, achieving publication in Poetry magazine was enough to establish a reputation as a poet?

Mrs. Hayakawa

It would establish their view of you as a poet. You have to establish yourself in a considerably broader field to live off your poetry. [laughs]

Shearer

But at least it established the definition of you as a poet.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. Well, not everybody agreed with that. But it was a very influential magazine in the literary world.

[interruption]

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Poetry: A Magazine of Verse

Is Indeed 5

NO MODERN poet to my knowledge has such a clear, child-like perception as E. E. Cummings—a way of coming smack against things with unaffected delight and wonder. This candor, which results in breath-takingly clean vision, is a quality he shares with William Carlos Williams, just about equally, although, to be sure, Williams is not child-like. No modern poet, furthermore, is less self-important than Cummings—none so delicately shy about asserting his will upon others. These are not, so far as I am aware, the customary opinions of his work, but if one keeps his attention for a time strictly upon the lyrical verses in the Collected PoemsCollected Poems, by E. E. Cummings. Harcourt, Brace & Co., without permitting himself to be startled or shocked (and therefore sidetracked) by the typographical fireworks or the satire, he will find qualities in Cummings' poetry that are reminiscent of nothing so much as a sensitive and well-mannered child. (The number at the end of each quotation indicates the number of the poem in the volume.)

	Always before your voice my soul
	half-beautiful and wholly droll
	is as some smooth and awkward foal
	whereof young moons begin
	the newness of his skin. [15]

	i am a beggar always
	who begs in your mind
	(slightly smiling, patient, unspeaking
	with a sign on his
	breast
	BLIND) yes i
	am this person of whom somehow
	you are never wholly rid . . . [171]

This lyrical impulse is quiet, pure, and innocent, so that few people have written better poetry for children than Cummings has.

	little tree
	little silent Christmas tree . . .
	who found you in the green forest
	and were you sorry to come away? [104]

Leave him alone, and he will play in a corner for hours, with his fragilities, his colors, and his delight in the bright shapes of all the things he sees:

	some ask praise of their fellows
	but i being otherwise
	made compose curves
	and yellows, angles or silences
	to a less erring end) [185]

The important point about E. E. Cummings is, however, that he was not left alone. He was dumped out into the uninnocent and unlyrical world — the world of chippies, broads, and burlesque shows such as are discovered by Harvard undergraduates "seeing life"—and after that into the infinitely more shocking world of the blood, vermin, murder, commercialized idealism, and patriotic hysteria of the Great War. Cummings wrote about these two worlds (which frequently merge into each other) his fiercest satirical verse. His lyricism, shy enough at best, ran completely for cover, and he turned upon the nightmare worlds of reality partly with the assumed callousness and defensive

---

self-mockery of the very sensitive, and partly with the white and terrible anger of the excessively shy.

The self-mockery that served to conceal his innocence and lyricism (principally from himself, one suspects) begins to find expression toward the end of Tulips and Chimneys, and recurs in his poetry throughout the rest of his work. Poems of this kind, dealing principally with prostitutes, yeggs, and perverts, are, like his play Him, powerful, phantasmagoric—as if the poet, having left his fragilities behind him, were exploring with unfeeling but lively curiosity a nether world peopled by hideous automatons. There is in these poems none of the sentimentality in reverse that made the "scarlet woman" and disreputable hang-outs the subjects for delicious shudders among the fin-de-siècle poets. Cummings' inferno is the accurate record of an incredulity that was compelled to accept, against the testimony of every innate sense of reality, the world as he found it to be.

	when you rang at Dick Mid's Place
	the madam was a bulb stuck in the door.
	a fang of wincing gas showed how
	hair, in two fists of shrill colour,
	clutched the dull volume of her tumbling face
	scribbled with a big grin. her sow—
	eyes clicking mischief from thick lids.
	the chunklike nose on which always the four
	tablets of perspiration erecting sitting . . . [37]

	the words drizzle untidily from released
	cheeks "I'll tell duh woild; some noive all right.
	Ain't much on looks but how dat baby ached."
	and when i timidly hinted "novocaine?"
	the eyes outstart, curl, bloat, are newly baked
	and swaggering cookies of indignant light. [122]

We have his detailed testimony as to the nature of the suicide part of him had to commit before all this could be accepted:

	the mind is its own beautiful prisoner
	Mine looked long at the sticky moon . . .
	then decently hanged himself, one afternoon . . .
	the last thing he saw was you
	naked amid unnaked things. [88]

Now and then, however, the world offers a situation which overcomes his indifference—and when this happens Cummings condenses such pity and terror into a sudden stanza or turn of phrase (all the more terrible because unexpected) that the reader is taken with a quick, sharp thud, right in the pit of his consciousness. These (perhaps involuntary) revelations of his carefully concealed ethical passion—not frequent, but frequent enough so that we know they are not accidental—constitute an unobtrusive claim by which we are compelled to grant that he has written some poetry that we cannot call anything but great. The famous Good Samaritan incident of the abandoned drunk—a poem which moves with a furious rush of pity, scorn, and horror to a terrifying climax—contains such a revelation. It is, perhaps, the best of all his poems.

	Brushing from whom the stiffened puke
	i put him all into my arms
	and staggered banged with terror through
	a million billion trillion stars. [142]

Anger is the central passion of his war-poetry—the white anger, as I have said, of the excessively shy. Although many have already conceded his Enormous Room to be one of the

---

greatest war-books, only few have as yet realized that Cummings has written what are certainly our greatest war-poems. Some of them, to be sure, are wry, grotesque whimsicality in the midst of death, such as 148 (the "etcetera" poem), and 151 ("look at this/a 75 done/this"). But such poems as 149 ("come, gaze with me upon this dome/of many colored glass, and see") and 204 ("i sing of Olaf glad and big/whose warmest heart recoiled at war") are written in an intensity of angry scorn that would be, in anyone else's hands, hysterical, but in Cummings is handled with a calculated reserve that holds the feelings, surely though dangerously, at an almost intolerable pitch:

	our president, being of which
	assertions duly notified
	threw the yellowsonofabitch
	into a dungeon, where he died

	Christ (of His mercy infinite)
	i pray to see; and Olaf, too

	preponderatingly because
	unless statistics lie he was
	more brave than me, more blond than you.

E. E. Cummings' descent into Hell is a trip from which he has not come up. He is still there (or here). Perhaps there is no coming up if, as Eliot has said, in prose one may be concerned with ideals, but in poetry one deals with reality. The brilliant mind that early took refuge in sophistication is now profoundly sophisticated (if this is not a contradiction in terms—one cannot say urbane, because he cares too much). All along he has had the habit of occasionally gathering together fragments of his inferno and weaving them into patterns of surprising lyric grace—as in 69 ("little ladies more/than dead exactly dance/in my head"). More frequently in his recent poetry he seems to be returning, although with elaborate precautions lest he be caught acting like a softie, to his naturally tender delicacy of sentiment—his almost sentimentality. But,

	along the treacherous bright streets
	of memory comes my heart, singing like
	an idiot, whispering like a drunken man
	who (at a certain corner, suddenly) meets
	the tall policeman of my mind. [184]

That mind is one that has been compelled to tragic adjustments.

Perhaps this fact explains the eccentricities of his technique. Partly they are a disguise—a man so sick of the "poetry" and rotten idealism of his time, a man so acutely aware of the ludicrous figure presented by people with beautiful souls in a world of brutes and slobberers, is forced if he is most indubitably a poet to present an exterior that will make it impossible for anyone to think of him as a "poet" as commonly understood. The painful, sardonic humor of 123 shows this process in operation. He deliberately drives away as many "poetry-lovers" as possible—the entire "literary" world of facile emotions. To these people he has nothing to say, preferring to be regarded, as he usually is by academic and journalistic reviewers alike, as plain nuts. Thus Mr. Cummings is sure that those who come to him, those who have been willing to force their way through the barbed-wire entanglements of his syntax and typography, are friends.

---

"The poems to come," as he says in his introduction, "are for you and for me and are not for mostpeople.

"—it's no use trying to pretend that mostpeople and ourselves are alike . . . You and I are human beings; mostpeople are snobs." It is no use either trying to pretend that it is Cummings who is the snob, for he is attacking the snobbery of the right-minded, than which there is no greater or more harmful snobbery.

	. . . may i be wrong
	for whenever men are right they are not young.

Another reason for his technique is his attempt, perhaps illegitimate, to represent by words and typography experiences just the way they happened, without regard to the formalities or the "laws" of thought. This results in the most daring of his technical innovations:

	n(o)w
	the
	how
	dis(appeared cleverly) world
	iS Slapped:with;liGhtninG
	! [221]

	sh estiffl
	ystrut sal
	lif san
	dbut sth
	epoutin(gWh.ono:w
	s li psh ergo
	wnd ow n, [262]

These are probably "not poetry", but I am not sure that this matters greatly, since they succeed eminently in doing what they set out to do. Mr. Cummings is not interested in the "legitimacy" of his experiments.

Can one say, following current critical fashions, that Cummings is up a blind alley, and so saying dismiss him as a left-over from the futilitarian twenties? This is not to ask whether he has said all he is capable of saying. The question is whether the exercise and discipline of our sensibilities to which his poetry submits us are still useful. If we find that they are, it is merely churlish to complain that he is no "fructifying force". His profound scepticism is regarded now, of course, as "dating" him. I am not at all sure that this is a fault in him—for his scepticism is of a kind that ought not to be lightly abandoned. His is not the easier way.

But one can make too much of his scepticism and scorn—for nineteenth century critics of Swift are not the only ones who can make the mistake of reading satire without seeing behind it the convictions out of which the satire arose. There is no excuse for missing these convictions in Cummings, for he makes them explicit:

	King Christ, this world is all aleak;
	and life preservers there are none:
	and waves which only He may walk
	who dares to call Himself a man. [258]

	I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
	than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance. [315]

The sum-total of such beliefs in Cummings comprises, I am sure, the absolute minimum of conviction with which a poet can do business. But these are things which need to be said over again by every generation in its own idiom, and Mr. Cummings has done right well in his.

The only regret about the Collected Poems is that Mr. Cummings did not see fit to collect all his poems. The omissions are few, but some, in my opinion, are important. The difficult typographical job which this volume represents has been excellently handled by Robert Josephy, who ought to be given a medal.

---

Hyde Park Co-op

Shearer

I was asking about your friends, and your social milieu, and you told me about the friends you made through Poetry magazine. Who else were you close to, comfortable with?

Mrs. Hayakawa

We got involved in co-ops. Hyde Park Co-op was in the neighborhood in which we lived. It was a small store when we first got there, and we joined and bought our groceries there. A few years later, it expanded into a new location. By that time, we had become active enough in it, helping the membership drive to expand the store, for me to be a candidate for the board of directors. I was on the board there for some years.

Shearer

You were president, weren't you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. I was the president for a time. I believe I was the only female president up to that time. I can't believe it was Hyde Park, but perhaps it was.

Shearer

What was the area that the Hyde Park grocery served? The neighborhood?

Mrs. Hayakawa

The extended neighborhood, because people came from farther away to shop at the Co-op, for various reasons, than they would to an ordinary store that was located more conveniently. There were chain stores in existence but they were very much inferior to chain stores now. The Co-op was able to compete successfully,

---

and the added attractions of the Co-op were information on food, on its purchasing policies, nutrition, and food preparation. Very early, they tried to interest the members in nutrition and values.

The idea that you could create a social improvement by carefully choosing where you purchased and how goods were distributed was a key tenet of the British cooperative movement, the Rochdale cooperatives. These, of course, were well established in England. In England, the stores always remained rather stodgy and old fashioned. But in America, the idea of improving the stores as well as the service and information caught hold. The Co-op, as it was modernized several times, was a pretty good small supermarket and a real neighborhood center for people. It had a weekly bulletin, a little four-page paper that carried information on prices, ads, values, consumer issues, and such things.

Shearer

What was the circulation of that paper?

Mrs. Hayakawa

It went to members--about 3,000 members at that time--that's a wild guess. It wasn't huge, but it had really concentrated membership in Hyde Park neighborhood.

Shearer

How close to the University of Chicago is Hyde Park Co-op?

Hayakawa

I would say five blocks.

Shearer

So the university is very much a presence.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, very much so.

Hayakawa

And they had a lot of faculty participants.

Shearer

Would you say that the members were largely middle class and professorial and white, or was there some kind of mixture?

Hayakawa

It was a very much middle-class neighborhood. A lot of the members were faculty and their wives. There was also a credit union that shared quarters with the Co-op itself. Didn't they have a Co-op nursery school too, developing around the Co-op?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. When our son Alan was born, he went first to the Co-op nursery school. That was in '48 or so. There was a co-op in the black neighborhood--Negro neighborhood, as we called it then. We early joined that one too. That was People's Consumer Cooperative on 47th Street. That was over toward Illinois Institute of Technology, where Don was teaching. We also belonged to the South Shore Co-op, another fledgling co-op which needed some help.

We went out of our way to shop at these more distant co-ops because they needed the patronage more than the Hyde Park Co-op.

---

A Matter of Linguistics

Given to the interviewer by S. I. Hayakawa Christmas 1990.

"There is only one language those international gangsters will understand, and that is Force!"

	The syntax of Force is simple: it pays no attention
	To case, gender, person, right, or wrong.
	What are the statements that you've got to make?
	Are you sure you know how to speak a human tongue?

	Did you try Volapuk? Did you try Basic English or Ido?
	Did you try the French-Negro dialects of Guadelupe?
	Did you try Swahili? Ragusan? Herero? or Hittite?
	Or any of the tongues of the Finno-Ugrian group?

	Did you try the language of postage stamps, or of love?
	Tagalog? pig Latin? Ostyak? Umbrian? Kurd?
	Bronx or Hidatsa? Schofield three-letter or Bentley?
	—Have you tried, gravely, to utter one meaningful word?

	For the phonemes of Force are scant in significations:
	Though its vowels, steel-lipped, invite no misconstruction,
	Its velars rend veils, its gutturals shatter all lights;
	Its lexicon, the simple semantics of destruction.

The New Republic

January 8, 1940 Dec. 23, 1982

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Moving to Hyde Park Boulevard

Shearer

And at this time, you were living in South Shore on 67th Street in that "stodgy" building?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. Eventually, we moved to a much larger, more desirable apartment on Hyde Park Boulevard, which--

Hayakawa

Which had room for ten children, and we didn't have any then! [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was a big apartment. It was during wartime, and there were lots of big apartments for rent, because families were dislocated. There was an excess of apartments and for-rent signs all over. I rode by in a bus one day and saw two signs on a building. We were looking for a change of place. I told Don about that, and we went back and looked at it. These two signs applied all to one apartment.

Hayakawa

That was about a ten-room apartment, wasn't it?

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was a big apartment, and I can't remember what it rented for. You wouldn't believe what it rented for. Something like $200.

Hayakawa

Anyway, I didn't see it that time.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You were out of town.

Hayakawa

I was in Denver, I was a visiting professor at Denver. You called to tell me that you found a nice apartment. It was only ten rooms! [laughter] Actually, two of them were rooms for servants, remember?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Hayakawa

There was room for a huge study, and more extra bedrooms. And a huge living room and dining room. My goodness, it was huge. Then there were two sun rooms with bay windows out at the opposite ends, looking out on Hyde Park Boulevard.

---

Shearer

And looking out on the park as well?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, this wasn't across from the park. This was a nice street with lots of trees, though. For the apartment we had left, I think we were paying at that time--was it $65 a month?

Hayakawa

Something like that.

Mrs. Hayakawa

And I can't remember what we jumped to, but it was a big jump--more than double. [laughs] Apparently, this apartment had been vacant for quite a while, because people didn't want anything that big. But we were looking for a bigger place. Was that just before Alan was born?

Hayakawa

No.

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, it was earlier.

Teaching Semantics at University of Denver

Hayakawa

Let me tell you something about this. That summer, I was a visiting professor at the University of Denver. You called to say you found an apartment, and I remember the conversation. I said, "How big is it?" And you said, "You have nine rooms; maybe it's ten."

Shearer

And you were teaching semantics then at the University of Denver?

Hayakawa

That's right. There were speech and English departments there. I was not in the English Department; I was in the Speech Department. The English Department wouldn't have anything to do with semantics.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Elwood Murry was in the Speech Department. He was a disciple of Korzybski's.

Shearer

So, was this the first time that you had to teach strictly semantics?

Hayakawa

I was brought in to give a semantic background to the freshman English course. That is, freshman English is to teach composition, and to understand semantic principles is to give meaning and substance to what you write. Nothing incompatible between that and learning to write well.

---

Shearer

What were the semantic principles that you introduced to your English classes?

Hayakawa

Well, simple ideas like this: there is a difference between a report, an inference, and a judgment. "This apartment has six rooms." Inference could be, "The last tenant must have been awfully rowdy; the place is a mess." The judgment is, "I wouldn't pay $100 a month for that damn thing," or, "Gee, that's great, we can get it for $100 a month." In so many statements we make, we don't attempt to distinguish between a judgment and that which is simply report--"It's $100 a month." Or we start right out with a judgment--"You paid $100 a month for that Goddamn thing?" [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

You used to give assignments for students to write something from a nonjudgmental point of view and then to rewrite it with a slanted point of view to make them conscious of what they were doing unconsciously.

Shearer

Did you use for some of your examples of slanted writing the newspapers?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. We would have the students bring in clippings from newspapers saying, "This is a nice, clear, unprejudiced report." "Here's one that's pushing the Democratic party by praising it, and pretending it's simply a report," and so on. Yes, they would do that.

Institute for Propaganda Analysis

Mrs. Hayakawa

Wasn't this the general time of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis? There was a lot of discussion of propaganda on a very naive level. People tended to label as propaganda ideas they disagreed with. But I think Don's approach to semantics was a little before that, that he was teaching students to think critically about how they used language and how other people used the language.

Hayakawa

I remember reading publications of the Institute of Propaganda Analysis and being very disappointed, and thinking to myself, "I can do better than that."

Shearer

What sort of publications were they issuing, the Institute?

---

Hayakawa

They were just telling you to watch out for lies and unsubstantiated statements and pointing out the difference between a condemnatory statement and a factual report, and so on. They did overlap somewhat with semantics.

Shearer

What was the impetus for this organization? Was it geared to the war?

Hayakawa

I think it started at Columbia University before the war started. Well, we were married in '37, and I took my first seminar at the end of the summer session at the University of Michigan. Remember? So that was probably in '38 or '39. Before going back to Wisconsin--we were still at Wisconsin--I stopped in Chicago to meet Korzybski. That must have been about '39.

Shearer

Would you have encountered this Institute for Propaganda Analysis during that trip?

Hayakawa

No, that was at Columbia University, and I never met them. I saw some of their writings. I thought, "Boy, is this superficial."

Shearer

What do you imagine was the social agenda of the Institute creators?

Hayakawa

They wanted to arm the public against extremists of the time, such as Hitler and Father Coughlin, a radio preacher from Detroit, who swayed entire populations with skillful emotional appeals to millions on the airwaves and on film. My view was heavily loaded at that time because they hadn't heard of semantics yet, and I had. I thought, "This is awfully, awfully naive stuff."

Mrs. Hayakawa

Didn't they have a lot of catch phrases about loaded words, and didn't they categorize different ways of presenting things so that you could be alert to these dangers?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Chicago's Racial and Ethnic Groups ##

Shearer

Can you characterize Chicago as you found it, ethnically and racially in terms of its housing and neighborhoods?

---

Hayakawa

It's so huge, it's hard to make generalizations. There are so many parts of Chicago so different from each other. We lived just at the edge of a residential district near the University of Chicago.

Mrs. Hayakawa

When you say the edge of it, you mean--

Hayakawa

The upper edge, northern.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well--

Hayakawa

It's the edge--it's about the outer limit for where people from the University of Chicago lived.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, I see.

Shearer

I gather that many of your students were among the groups that you would call ethnics--the Slovaks, and--

Hayakawa

Oh, yes, there were a lot of ethnics. There were few blacks there, although the college was in a black neighborhood. There weren't that many blacks going into engineering. But then after we united with Lewis Institute, the Illinois Institute of Technology joined together, we had some black students that were not engineering students. That included some black girls.

Shearer

Was this a middle-class black neighborhood, or was it a poorer area?

Hayakawa

It was in the immediate surroundings of the Chicago White Sox ballpark, but it was much bigger than that, because it went way down south, too. Now the district we used to live in is probably all black by now.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes, I understand it is.

Hayakawa

So the black districts have enormously increased.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Alan went there to photograph the old apartment building last--on his way across the country, and he said it was all black, much of Hyde Park down to--I don't know how far, because southside was--

Hayakawa

It was all white except for me! [laughs] When we left.

Shearer

Was the neighborhood surrounding the Institute of Technology a tough one? Did you feel uneasy walking through the black neighborhood?

---

Hayakawa

Well, we didn't have much walking through because we came by car. That's one thing, we went right to our parking lot. Or if you came by streetcar, you only had a couple short blocks to walk through. But it was a poor enough neighborhood and questionable enough neighborhood so that once in a long time, one of our students got beaten up.

Shearer

I recall your telling me that when you first arrived in the United States, you came to Chicago and the first thing that happened to you was that you were mugged and robbed. I just wonder how you felt coming back to Chicago, and taking up residence, and choosing a neighborhood--

Hayakawa

Oh, that never connected up in my mind. I had forgotten all about it.

Shearer

But were there distinct boundaries between neighborhoods where the races lived?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, to answer that in terms of the co-ops, there were still a lot of nationality co-ops. There was a Slovenian co-op, and I think a Czechoslovakian co-op too. The southwest side was full of these little enclaves of ethnic groups.

Hayakawa

Lithuanians.

Shearer

How would you characterize the racial situation, or ethnic relations in Chicago?

Hayakawa

Well, my principal contact being first Illinois Institute of Technology and then later on University of Chicago, we didn't think much in terms of racial groups--"Oh, that guy's a Slovenian, that guy's a Hungarian," and so on. The important thing now to a degree that wasn't then is that there's a black Chicago and a white Chicago. From what I can read, racial rivalry there is much more intense than it was when we left.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. Once we got to know our way around in the black community, we weren't afraid to go walking around, to go to meetings, and so on. If you had never ventured there, I suppose you'd feel it strange venturing into that community. But there was little violence and robbery and murder and rape going on so far as we were aware of. It wasn't exactly relaxed, or an entirely friendly relationship, but you know, if you had business or interest, or belonged to a co-op, you'd just go ahead as you would go anyplace. I think that was true of the whole city. The cooperative wholesale was somewhere way across town in not a very good neighborhood. It never occurred to me to not go there at night. We weren't afraid.

---

Shearer

So shabby didn't mean dangerous, necessarily.

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, not necessarily.

Shearer

And what was it that, by and large, took you into the black neighborhoods?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, first of all, our interest in the co-op and interest in race relations were tied together. We were going to make the world over by having everybody get together as a cooperative and work there with us. We should all benefit.

Then, he began to have contacts with the Chicago Defender, and jazz, of course, was a big thing. He used to go and hear music in jazz clubs.

Shearer

Did you develop your interest in jazz as you began living in Chicago?

Hayakawa

No. The interest was there before I went back to Chicago, but with not much opportunity to manifest itself.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't remember much about it in Madison.

Shearer

So you had a record collection--?

Hayakawa

No, I wasn't paying much attention to jazz in Madison in those days.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, I think it began in Chicago, really.

Hayakawa

Well, I already had a background in popular music from the University of Manitoba days. But then you learned things like, "Five foot two, eyes of blue"; they are quite popular songs. Only later did I realize that jazz had particularly Negro origins.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He could play the piano, by the way, pick up and play by ear. He just has a great sense of popular music. I think for one brief period, he took piano lessons to learn to play and tried his hand at classical music. But he gave that up. However, he's just naturally able to play in the jazz style.

---

The Chicago Defender

Shearer

You said one of your incentives to cross the neighborhood boundaries was to improve race relations. Did you see difficulties in the race relations in Chicago?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, surely. You couldn't not be aware of it if you were at all sensitive to other people. Well, you answer that, Don. I don't know. How did you get into your deeper involvement in race relations?

Hayakawa

Through the Chicago Defender, mostly.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, how did you get to the Chicago Defender, then?

Hayakawa

I've forgotten. I must have met Dr. Metz Lochard somewhere. He was the editor at that time. He was French-speaking.

Shearer

He was black?

Hayakawa

He was black, and also French-speaking and English-speaking. He had a considerable amount of self-esteem as being different from other Negroes because he spoke French and because he was very literate. He was sort of a culture snob. Anyway, it was he who asked me to be a regular columnist for the Defender. I'm very, very glad I did.

Shearer

He must have read your work.

Hayakawa

I don't know if he did or not. But he certainly must have known about me. I don't remember how I first met him.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I don't know what the sequence of events is. We started knowing people in the Negro neighborhood through the co-op, and whether any individual there suggested Don, I don't know.

Hayakawa

We knew some of the literary people like Gwendolyn Brooks and Horace Cayton and so on.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, that's true. And remember Inez Bolton, who was a volunteer at Poetry magazine and a poet. She was a rich woman who lived in an apartment on the lakeshore, and was very much interested in race relations, and had a lot of black friends and contacts. I don't know if she had anything to do with introducing us to people.

Hayakawa

I don't recall that she did.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

We knew a lot of people who were interested in keeping contacts in both worlds.

Shearer

When Dr. Lochard invited you to become a columnist, did he lay out for you what he hoped you might accomplish, or any of the issues he thought you might address?

Hayakawa

No. He left that entirely up to me.

Shearer

What was the stance of your column? What did you feel that you might accomplish?

Hayakawa

[laughs] Well, a basic slogan of the Chicago Defender was, "American Race Prejudice Must Be Destroyed!" [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

That was the slogan.

Shearer

Well, that's a good setting-out point--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Did you start your column during the war?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. Now, that was a somewhat courageous thing for a Japanese to do, because there was a great suspicion of--

Hayakawa

Japanese spies.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, and the fact that--

Shearer

In the black community particularly?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I don't know; but there was an idea that there was some nefarious connection between a Japanese boring from within, somehow. This isn't putting it right, Don. But it was one of those things that could be a big obstacle in people's minds, but it was no obstacle at all when it came down to it. That's what many of these situations have turned out to be. Don just moved in and was himself, and nobody objected. And he was clearly not a propagandist for--

Shearer

For the Japanese emperor?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, he just moved into every opportunity, even without thinking how much time he had to give to it. [laughter]

Shearer

Yes. I'm wondering how you managed being professor and visiting professor and a regular columnist with a weekly column. That's relentless, those deadlines.

---

Hayakawa

It was fun, wasn't it? [laughter]

Shearer

Meanwhile, you, Marge, were working in the co-ops, taking a leadership position, and serving as president, and the only woman president.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I've got to sort that out. It came up recently, and I thought, my God, is that true? Was I really the only woman who served as president? It must have been that co-op, but they've had so many active women in such a feminist community as Hyde Park, it just can't be true.

Shearer

Well, I'd like to come back to the co-op movement, after we can look at some of the documents and get the chronology straight.

Anti-Japanese Incident

Shearer

You said earlier that you experienced no anti-Japanese sentiment during the war years, and yet it must have been in the air. I'm thinking of reading the letters to the editor, for example, in the newspaper. I imagine one would see letters raising suspicion.

Hayakawa

I'll tell you a story about that in February 1942. Waiting between trains.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You must tell that story. I was trying to think of the story.

Hayakawa

It wasn't Madison; it was one of the small cities. There was a long wait between trains, and it was dead of winter of 1942. I learned that the sleeping car was leaving after midnight, and there was nothing much to do between eight and twelve. So I went into a bar. It was quite crowded. There were two men over here, and there was me, and there were some women over there. [gesturing]

Somehow, the conversation involved the two women and the two men and me. Some drunk came in who was not a member of this particular party. I don't know if these two men and two women were one party or not; they were just contiguous. But some drunk came in and said, pointing at me, "I want that Goddamn Jap out of here." Being my particular size, I wasn't going to go after him with my fists, but I could pretend I was going to, which I did like that. [assumes fighting stance]

---

So I made as if to go after him, you see, knowing exactly what would happen. The two girls grabbed me and said, "Don't do it! He's twice your size, for God's sake!" [laughter]

And this great big guy sitting next to me said to the assailant, "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size?" They had some words, these two big guys, the man who was molesting me and the guy who was defending me from being molested. And you know, those two guys went outside and had a fight right there. The guy who was on my side came back in, a little bit the worse for wear. But they were of equal size.

Those two girls, they were so nice.

Shearer

And you were clearly the master of the situation. [laughter] Well, your defender came back the worse for wear, but he came back?

Hayakawa

Yes, he did come back. The other one didn't.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Didn't somebody lose a tooth or something like that? Some really disastrous thing happened to the hero, I think.

Hayakawa

I think my friend lost a tooth.

Shearer

My word. And what was the aftermath, then? You sat down and--

Hayakawa

That's all. We all sat down and had more drinks. I was still waiting for my train to leave.

Shearer

Well, that's quite a story. It puts me a little in mind of your bluff so many years earlier at the machine gun corps camp, when you lost your ring, and made as if to go after the perpetrator, and he backed down.

Hayakawa

I told you that one, didn't I? This was at military summer camp.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, I heard that story for the first time. You were in Canada.

Shearer

Well, this is a wonderful story, and I thank you. This is a good note on which to conclude today.

---

VII International Society for General Semantics, Etc.

---

##

Shearer

Just a note to the transcriber. We are looking at back issues of ETC. A Review of General Semantics and, in particular, an article by Stanley Diamond in Volume 14.

Hayakawa

Stanley Diamond, who is my very good friend to this day, wrote this article in 1957, when he was district supervisor for the Bureau of Milk Control, California State Department of Agriculture.

Shearer

How did he arrive at that position?

Hayakawa

I have no idea.

Shearer

Do you remember what he was doing when you first met him?

Hayakawa

Well, this is the little footnote identifying him as "Mr. Diamond, a graduate of the University of California, says he's also been a professional musician." Now, I didn't know that. "An undernourished writer, and even more undernourished actor. His article, `Man, Don't Wallow Around in Words,' appeared in the winter 1956-57 issue of ETC."

Founding the International Society for General Semantics

Shearer

I would like to ask you about founding the International Society for General Semantics and ETC., its official organ. I noticed in the masthead of the publication that the International Society for General Semantics was founded in Chicago in 1942.

---

Hayakawa

Yes, I was living there then. Korzybski was living there, too. He was still living then. I think he died in 1950.

Shearer

I believe so. The statement in the beginning of your article in the first issue of ETC. explains that the Society was founded by a group of scholars, scientists, and interested laymen to promote the study of general semantics and related inquiries into the role of language and other symbols in human communication and behavior. How did it come about, as you recall?

Hayakawa

I was the first editor of ETC., wasn't I?

Shearer

Yes, you were, and you were the editor certainly for the longest time, I believe for twenty-seven years, from '43 until 1970.

Hayakawa

Really that long? [pause, then laughs]

Shearer

Tell me what amuses you. The transcriber is going to be anxious to know what you're seeing.

Hayakawa

Et Cetera; did you see the poem?

Shearer

Oh, yes, I did. This is the poem by e.e. cummings entitled Et Cetera, which is in the first issue of ETC.Volume 1, number 1, August 1943, page 24. Can we go back a little bit and talk just briefly about the Society, and then we'll go into the magazine? Can you describe the society as you remember it in the year that it was founded, 1942? Was it a small group of hardy souls, or--?

Hayakawa

I'm trying to reconstruct all this. I'm looking at the masthead. The International Society of General Semantics was founded to promote the "encouragement of scientific research and theoretical inquiry into non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics. Issued four times a year. Editor: S. I. Hayakawa, Assistant Editor: Henry J. Webb." I've forgotten who he is. Oh, Department of Language and Literature, Illinois Institute of Technology. He and I were teaching in the same place then. And Consulting Editors Alfred Korzybski, Wendell Johnson, Raymond W. McNealy, and Irving Lee.

Shearer

What role did Raymond McNealy play?

Hayakawa

None whatsoever. He was sort of a founding guardian angel that lent his name for the purpose of prestige. He never contributed a line of his own prose to ETC.

Shearer

Did he encourage other people to--

Hayakawa

I don't know; I didn't know him that well. But he was a professor of surgery at Northwestern University, a big name at that time. And he was there encouraging us so much when we started it. I knew him through Korzybski.

Shearer

Was he one of Korzybski's students in the seminar you attended?

Hayakawa

I just don't know that much about it. I don't know what the relations were between Korzybski and Dr. McNealy. Irving J. Lee, First Lieutenant, United States Army--that was a temporary position. He was professor of speech at Northwestern University.

Shearer

Can you tell me a little bit about what role Korzybski himself played in the founding of the Society and ETC.? How did it come about?

Hayakawa

All right. Well, the Society for General Semantics was formed as something independent of the Institute of General Semantics, which is essentially the school where Korzybski gave his seminars. Essentially, I founded the Society of General Semantics along with some other scholars: Irving Lee--

---

EtceteraFrom Collected Poems, published by Harcourt, Brace and Company. Copyright, 1923, 1935, 1931, 1938, by E. E. Cummings. Copyright, 1926, by Boni and Liveright.

	my sweet old etcetera
	aunt lucy during the recent

	war could and what
	is more did tell you just
	what everybody was fighting

	for,
	my sister

	isabel created hundreds
	(and
	hundreds) of socks not to
	mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

	etcetera wristers etcetera, my
	mother hoped that

	i would die etcetera
	bravely of course my father used
	to become hoarse talking about how it was
	a privilege and if only he
	could meanwhile my

	self etcetera lay quietly
	in the deep mud et

	cetera
	(dreaming,
	et

	cetera, of
	Your smile
	eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

---

Anatol Rapoport

Shearer

How about Anatol Rapoport?

Hayakawa

He got involved a little later.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was in the army, too, at that time.

Hayakawa

Yes, I think he was.

Shearer

I have a note here that he became associate editor in 1945.

Hayakawa

'45, well, that's a couple years later, then.

Shearer

So he was not--

Hayakawa

--there at the very beginning, no. In fact, I didn't meet him until after the war was over, in '45. He and I became very good friends. He was in the army during that time. He spoke Russian.

Shearer

I have a note here that he worked in something called "Mathematical Biology."

---

Hayakawa

Mathematical Biology; I never knew what the hell that was. [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was very advanced.

Shearer

He wrote Science and the Goals of Man in 1950 and Operational Philosophy in 1953.

Hayakawa

I think I have those books downstairs, although I'm not sure I've read them.

Shearer

In his article in the book you edited, Language, Meaning, and Maturity, he contributed something called "What is Semantics?" and he spoke of Korzybski's detractors and adherents in a very calm and kind of dispassionate way. Apparently, there was a certain amount of controversy, which you allude to, when Korzybski's book was first published. Or I guess maybe there was always controversy.

Hayakawa

Yes, it was always controversial. Actually, it was published in 1933, long before I came along. I didn't know about it at that time. Anatol Rapoport is not in this at all yet. The last issue in this volume is summer 1944.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He became a close friend very quickly after he got back, and it was through us that he met his wife.

Hayakawa

That's true, isn't it?

Mrs. Hayakawa

There was a party for co-op leadership at the regional office of the Cooperative League in Chicago.

Shearer

Who was she?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Gwen Goodrich was a staff member.

Shearer

What was her job at the co-op?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think she worked with the office of the Cooperative League for the United States, which had its Chicago office there. I was a staff member there.

Shearer

So then you had a social life as couple with them, couple-to-couple, as well as scholar-to-scholar?

Hayakawa

We saw them.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

We saw them a lot. But we never had any real organized social life. We saw all the people that we could get into our crowded lives through his teaching work and other interests we had.

Shearer

So it was based on activities in which you were--?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. Gwen was a roommate of Geraldine Udell's for a while. They met through us. It seems as if everybody we knew became linked together somehow.

Society's Relationship to Korzybski

Shearer

I'm going to wrench the subject back a little bit to the Society for General Semantics. Why did you feel the need for an adjunct, or separate, organization?

Hayakawa

Well, the Institute of General Semantics itself was just the place where Korzybski gave his courses. In order to have a journal, we had to have a membership society to back it up. I founded the International Society, and I founded the journal, too.

Shearer

So the Society was really there in order to start the journal.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

How did you let the word out? Was it necessary to make an effort? Or was there kind of a level of ferment and excitement around the ideas of Korzybski?

Hayakawa

Yes, there was some. It wasn't huge. Korzybski's institute was in a large apartment plus office, altogether two or three stories, not far from the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago would have nothing to do with him.

Shearer

Why?

Hayakawa

I don't know. I never talked to anybody there about it.

Shearer

Did he have no advanced degrees?

Hayakawa

No, the only title that he ever had was Count. [laughs] From Poland. He was Count Alfred Scarbeck--two or three other middle names before you got to Korzybski.

---

Irving Lee and Wendell Johnson

Shearer

It's amazing that he made the waves that he did without any institutional foundation.

Hayakawa

That's right, he was his own institution. But we made him very famous. There were three of us who made him famous: my first edition of Language in Action in '41 was a best seller; Irving Lee, professor of speech, Northwestern University, who taught general semantics to his speech students; and then there was Wendell Johnson, professor of speech pathology at the University of Iowa, who passed on the Korzybski word to his students.

Shearer

Anatol Rapoport, in describing the impact of your work and the work of Lee and Johnson, said that you had this booming best-seller and were reaching out far beyond the college classrooms, but that the other two men had their works become standard college texts. So you were definitely influential.

Hayakawa

Yes. Irving Lee wrote a book, what was the name of it? I could find out by going downstairs.

Shearer

The Language of Wisdom and Folly?

Hayakawa

And is there one called Language Habits in Human Affairs?

Shearer

Yes.

Hayakawa

That's Irving Lee's.

Shearer

That's the one that became the college text.

Hayakawa

And Wendell Johnson wrote a book called People in Quandaries: The Semantics of Personal Adjustment.

Shearer

Was he in something of a quandary at some point in his life? Didn't you tell me he was--

Hayakawa

A stutterer.

Shearer

I wonder if that gave him a particular vantage from which to examine this issue.

Hayakawa

It's hard to say.

Mrs. Hayakawa

That probably made him a speech teacher.

---

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

And, let's see, Irving Lee--

Hayakawa

He was professor of speech at Northwestern University.

Shearer

And did you become close to Irving Lee?

Hayakawa

Not as close as I was with Wendell Johnson. But they were both good friends.

Shearer

When we talked briefly yesterday about the role that Lee played at the magazine, I was asking who was particularly helpful. I think you said that you had expected him to be very helpful, but it turned out that he wasn't. Do you recall?

Hayakawa

I don't remember saying that. It's sort of true. He never took on the magazine ETC. A Review of General Semantics as anything that he was deeply involved in. Wendell Johnson was much more helpful, and Anatol Rapoport was very helpful.

Shearer

When you say helpful, what do you mean?

Hayakawa

Contributing articles, and helping in the editing and so on. Wendell Johnson was helping from the very, very beginning; so was Irving Lee. This is Volume One, Number One I'm looking at.

Shearer

You mentioned that the contributors came from such various fields that someone was always a layman in the field of one or the other of the experts. So I imagine that it would be an exceptional burden on one editor to handle it all.

Hayakawa

Oh, I don't know, it wasn't so bad. I was "it." I don't know that it was any more difficult than being editor of anything else.

Shearer

How did you become "it?"

Hayakawa

Because I started the magazine. [laughter]

The Function of ETC., A Review of General Semantics

Shearer

And why was the idea of the journal, the magazine, so important?

Hayakawa

Oh. Well, there's a feeling generally once you embarked upon a new area of learning--let's say microbiology--and there is no

---

journal of microbiology, someone's got to start one. Those who are most interested in the subject will start one. It's the same thing with general semantics.

Shearer

I'm wondering if it functions somewhat to define and focus the field of inquiry.

Hayakawa

That's right, exactly. And that's what you'd have to do with microbiology, too. The journal defines what the field is.

Shearer

If, as Korzybski suggested, or stated, or maybe asserted, that language is not merely incidental to communication, but in fact shapes how people think about the world, would you say that the journal ETC. helped shape the way general semanticists or people who thought they might be general semanticists thought about this field of inquiry?

Hayakawa

Oh, sure. It gave them all guidance as to what general semantics was about, and how it should affect their thinking, the readers' thinking.

Shearer

Rapoport, in his article on "What Is Semantics," distinguishes between general semanticists, such as Korzybski and his adherents, and the academic and philosophical semanticists. Was any of the controversy carried on within the pages of ETC., or did the philosophical semanticists not contribute?

Hayakawa

My impression is that they did not contribute. Let me think. In fact, we didn't know who the hell they were. [laughter] All these people communicated articles, could send articles, to ETC. like Wendell Johnson, Margaret Mead, and so on--they were all people who are not semanticists in the usual sense. They came in from outside, through general semantics. Bloodstein, for example.

Shearer

Oliver Bloodstein, who wrote about art?

Hayakawa

Modern art, yes.

Shearer

There is an article by Wendell Johnson, "You Can't Write Writing," in which he says essentially that, but you can try to communicate effectively something to someone. Could we distinguish the semanticists from the general semanticists by saying that the general semanticists are inquiring into symbology of language in the service of communicating something to someone, and the philosophical semanticists are more concerned with internal logic--symbology?

---

Hayakawa

That's pretty good, but on the general semanticists I'd go further than that. Mainly we start with the idea that meaning is not something you find in a dictionary. When you mention a word that applies to an individual or to a body of theory that you abhor, you begin to shrink up. It's not in the dictionary, that process of shrinking up. That's the semantic reaction; that's where meaning really lies, in the fact that you smile or you clench your fists, you get angry or whatever--these are reactions of the human nervous system to the words.

Lexicography has nothing to do with it. Lexicography is getting those words defined and putting them in a dictionary. But semantic reaction is how your blood pressure rises, or you change from being angry to being tender, etc. These are all impacts of communication.

Shearer

Was it your idea to call the magazine ETC.?

Hayakawa

Yes, I think so.

Shearer

Why?

Hayakawa

Well, because you start with the general theory, general proposition, that no statement says all about anything. You can say, "That's a teacup, that's a private school, that's a paved street," or whatever, there's more to be said to account for whatever it is.

Shearer

More than the category?

Hayakawa

Yes, that's right.

Shearer

So the aim is to be as particular--

Hayakawa

Well, that's one thing. And the other aim--the other thing is to remember that whatever you heard about anything or anybody is only part of the total truth, you see? You say, "Joe is just a ball player." [laughs] Well, you haven't said all. He's also a father, left-handed, a lousy poker player.

Shearer

And there are those little operative signal words like "just" and "only." How would that--?

Hayakawa

Yes. So there's where "etc." comes in, too.

##

---

Korzybski as Teacher, Master

Shearer

You mentioned in an earlier interview that when you were in Korzybski's seminar, and subsequently, he regarded you as kind of a "bad boy." You were not content to merely "receive the word"; you wanted to put your own stamp on it, and you didn't always pay attention to the extent, I guess, that he thought you should. How did you work with him on ETC.?

Hayakawa

I didn't work with him on the magazine; I was just by myself. I had other friends who helped me out as co-editors and writers and so on, in the very beginning, with Assistant Editor Henry Webb, who was just an English teacher, teaching at the same place I was at that time. Webb was not really deeply interested in semantics; he just wanted to get his name in print.

Shearer

Sometimes organizations that have a very strong and charismatic founder find it difficult to deal with a resident founder after a generation or two of the operation of the organization. And I'm wondering if Korzybski himself wasn't a little difficult to deal with in terms of his contribution to the magazine, or his willingness or interest in editing or directing the editorial policy.

Hayakawa

Well, he never did get to direct our policy as to what was put in the magazine. It was a pretty independent operation.

Shearer

How were you able to maintain that policy and still have a cordial relationship?

Hayakawa

Yes, it was very cordial. I have to add this, though: Korzybski, like some teachers, believed that it is essential to have the same indoctrination over, and over, and over again, so you really get it into your nervous system. Well, I got in Dutch with him from the very beginning--rather from the second stage after the beginning--when he wanted me to take his routine seminar a second and a third and a fourth time. Starting with the second one, I would go to sleep on him.

Shearer

The seminar was a course of some weeks, or--?

Hayakawa

Well, the seminar would be, oh, several days, a week or so, I think. But whatever it was, he had different ways of giving it. But I understood it the first time [laughs] and became quite impatient at repetitions of the same routine, same words, same order. But he had a great belief that once you've heard this lecture, in order to get it into your nervous system you've got to hear it again, and again, and again. He always got mad at me

---

because I wouldn't listen a second time around, or else I'd go to sleep. I'm very good at going to sleep at other people's lectures. [laughter]

Shearer

Well, I noticed that other writers and contributors to the magazine seldom adhered to Korzybski's terms. People said, "In other words" to elucidate what he was saying. I wonder if he wasn't apprehensive that the import and meaning and value of his contribution resided in the very terms that he created.

Hayakawa

Well, to a considerable degree, yes. He insisted on his terminology. But I strayed from it quite often, I think, because--actually, I was writing a textbook for freshmen in college. There were some kinds of terminology he used that I didn't think was appropriate at that level.

Shearer

I gather he himself was criticized for using terminology that some academicians considered--

Hayakawa

Well, I don't know about that. I wasn't part of the criticism. But many people felt that reading Korzybski is hard work.

Shearer

Well, it was not so evident to me, a lay reader, what he had to contribute, until I had read what you said about him, and Anatol Rapoport's interpretation and elaboration of his ideas. Until then, it just was not obvious what the import was.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He both welcomed the wider audience that he got as a result of Anatol's and Don's presentation, and he resented it. Because Anatol and Don were saying in different words what he felt he had said perfectly. So there was no solution. [laughter] On some level he disapproved of Don's work, no matter how much it contributed to the audience for his own work. There was that conflict.

[pause to reposition microphone to catch Mrs. Hayakawa's comments]

I think there was always this dual feeling of wanting Don as a disciple and still not approving of the way in which he chose to teach his students about semantics. There was always a feeling that Don had not preserved the true meaning, so that there was a problem from the beginning. He wanted disciples rather than equals. Don't let me get into this too deeply; you say what you want to say; you don't want me to interpret this whole thing.

Shearer

But that was your observation?

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, sitting along the side, watching this. I don't think he ever approved of me because I withheld myself from being a--

Shearer

Oh, being a disciple?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

He was less strict with Don? You, Don, also did not choose to become a disciple.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, to a degree, Don was a disciple, in that he adopted this point of view and tried to spread it, which of course Korzybski welcomed in a way. But Don didn't do it exactly the way the master had laid it out, and so he was not a good disciple. So there was this very complicated feeling.

More on ETC.

Shearer

I would think that reading ETC. Korzybski would have been bristling all the time because the contributors were speaking persuasively and clearly about a subject close to his heart, but they certainly weren't using his words.

Hayakawa

ETC. is still going.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I wouldn't know.

Hayakawa

Of course, I haven't been involved for some years now.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Anatol was still involved with it, was he not?

Shearer

He was, again, in the seventies. It then shifted to--I think his name was Thomas Weiss, at the University of Wyoming?

Hayakawa

Something like that, yes.

Shearer

Was he a disappointment to you?

---

Hayakawa

Thomas Weiss was not really a scholar. He didn't know as much about general semantics as I thought he should. It really was a disaster to have him take over.

Shearer

Roughly, what kind of a membership did the Society for General Semantics have in the two decades that you were editor?

Hayakawa

I can't give you circulation figures because I've forgotten them, but whatever following we had, we had a very loyal following. I'm not sure how loyal that following is now.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Do you think it was 2,000 subscribers you had?

Hayakawa

I thought it was more than that.

Shearer

If you had lay subscribers, it could very well have been more than 2,000.

Hayakawa

Well, there are no professional semanticists, after all. So everybody was lay, in a way.

Shearer

But I mean--

Hayakawa

--general public.

Shearer

Just general public, yes.

Hayakawa

There were a lot of general public supporters of ETC.

Keeping ETC. Independent of Korzybski

Shearer

The other day when we were speaking of ETC., you mentioned a woman named M. Kendig as being an important person.

Hayakawa

She was Korzybski's right-hand person, I guess. She was--whether the title was actually used or not, I don't know--but she was sort of an associate director of the Institute of General Semantics. She did much of the interviewing and contact work with students who came to study general semantics there.

Shearer

I think she was listed as consulting editor on the masthead.

Hayakawa

Yes. Well, we consulted her. [laughter]

---

Shearer

Would she have been the person you would deal with, rather than Korzybski himself?

Hayakawa

No, I didn't deal with either very much. I ran ETC. pretty much according to my own lights and with advice from respected colleagues like Wendell Johnson and Irving Lee and Anatol Rapoport. People at the Institute of General Semantics, that is, people who were directly under Korzybski's thumb, were not people with real experience in the academic world. They had never been professors, they had never been members of learned societies, except the ones they formed themselves. I had to operate like one who was part of the learned world, the accepted learned world, including the American Psychological Association, American Sociological Association, and so on to produce a journal that didn't have that nutty flavor emanating from Korzybski's own pronouncements.

Shearer

As far as the academic world was concerned, ETC. occupied a different place from Korzybski's?

Hayakawa

Yes. I wanted to treat general semantics as a subject, in the same sense that there's a scientific concept known as gravitation, which is independent of Isaac Newton. [laughter] So after a while, you don't talk about Newton anymore; you talk about gravitation. You talk about semantics and not Korzybskian semantics.

Shearer

Are there any other people involved that you'd like to mention or discuss, that we may have overlooked?

Hayakawa

Well, the two most important people are both dead now; one was Wendell Johnson, professor of speech pathology at the University of Iowa, and the other was Irving Lee, professor of speech at Northwestern University. They did a lot for the movement. They wrote very well. It's sad that they both died early in life. I think both of them were under sixty when they died.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes, I'm sure. Perhaps it was fifty.

Shearer

That seems disturbingly young.

Hayakawa

They were very good people. Wendell Johnson's book, People in Quandaries, was a very, very good book. As I mentioned, he was a stutterer, and he became an authority on stuttering. So he got into psychology, and essentially, his own psychology. But he was a very fine scholar.

Shearer

Did he influence your thinking in this area?

---

Hayakawa

Not especially. We just sort of went on parallel paths.

Carl Rogers

Shearer

What about Carl Rogers?

Hayakawa

Carl Rogers developed a point of view as a psychologist independent of any of us semanticists. And actually, I embraced Rogers' theories with great interest and enthusiasm at one stage. I still think he's a very, very important psychologist. But he never said, "I'm also a semanticist." He regarded his own work in psychology as having its own independent validity from other schools of thought.

Shearer

I've read that his rule governing arguments--or conversations, even--is that if you disagree with someone, that before you can speak your mind, you have to describe the ideas and feelings of the previous speaker in such a way that the previous speaker is completely satisfied. Then you can state your own opinion.

Hayakawa

I don't know that he ever made such a pronouncement, but his point of view is such that he would encourage such a practice.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, indeed. In fact, it came into our lives at the very time we were dealing with our children, helping them communicate. It was a tremendously influential way to work as far as I was concerned. I think that Don felt that way, too. It was helpful in getting along with children; to listen to them--and to repeat to them what they might be feeling. That sort of quieted them down; it was very effective. Rogers taught you to listen, and pay attention, instead of overriding another person while you just keep going, stating the same thing over again. It was a great thing, I think, for parents.

Shearer

Yes. I would like to talk more about this when we talk about child raising, and in the next interview.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I got much more from Carl Rogers than I did Korzybski.

Shearer

Was this specifically this practice that he described for arguments or discussions?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, it was just his whole approach, which was humane and open and understanding, not just this one technique.

---

Shearer

He said in print that he owed you, Don, a debt of gratitude. Because he said that you warned that if you follow this practice of putting yourself very firmly in somebody else's shoes, and try to feel what the other person feels, that you risk change. [laughter] And for a therapist, that's scary. You'd better watch out. And he said he agreed with you.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Such a contrast to Freudian therapy, in which "Papa knows everything," and just used to worm it out of you. [laughter]

Shearer

Well, I know when my children were little, there was a type of child-raising technique called Parent Effectiveness Training, which I realize must have borrowed heavily, if not wholly, from Rogers because it uses the same technique of repeating what the child has said, or the spouse, or the business partner, whatever, to help the other person become aware of his own feelings.

Semantics seem to draw on such a rich source of content just from everyday life. I remember Margaret Mead's article in ETC. on foods and children. She describes the evaluative commentary from the adult that almost inevitably accompanies eating when a parent and a child eat together.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think that Don had a feeling for the implications of semantics to the ordinary person that went beyond Korzybski's view. Korzybski wanted people to accept it as therapy, and go over and over and deeper and deeper. Don wanted to spread it out for people to apply in their own way to the fields in which they were operating. And this is what ETC. brought into it, and this made tension from the beginning between the master and the disciple. Don was not a natural-born disciple. [laughter] He was always straying off into another field or another implication.

Avoiding Korzybski's Seminars

Shearer

Well, you both were straying widely in those times. You, Don, were writing for the Chicago Defender, and you, Marge, were involved in the co-ops and Poetry magazine.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. I was never a disciple. It was obvious to Korzybski that I wasn't. I never took a whole seminar; I wouldn't do it.

Hayakawa

No, you didn't. [laughs] Every time you and Korzybski met each other, you would freeze up.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

He wasn't my style. Don was so much more open and accepting; he was willing to take all this other stuff and get out of it what meant something to him. I would probably cut myself off from the wellspring of truth, holding myself back. Korzybski, of course, felt this and thought that I was probably very, very neurotic--very sick--and that I needed very much to take the seminar. [laughing]

Shearer

So he was very sternly examining your--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, he was very judgmental, but I kept myself far enough away that I wasn't in danger of being worked on. [laughter]

Hayakawa

Korzybski was the very model of the authoritarian person, and she reacts against that tremendously.

Shearer

What would be the worst that you could imagine that would happen?

Mrs. Hayakawa

That my intransigence would disrupt what Don was trying to do with Korzybski. I just didn't want to get between them, so I just stayed away. Why didn't I take a seminar? [imitates Korzybski] "You need to take a seminar!" What could I say to that? [laughter] He was a unique character, all right.

Shearer

Did he have any life apart from these seminars, or was he a single-focus fellow?

Hayakawa

Pretty much single-focus person.

##

Hayakawa

By the time I knew him, he had written his two major books. Manhood and Humanity, that was the first one, back in the twenties sometime, and then in the thirties, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics. He wasn't writing any more by the time I came along; he was preaching what he already had written.

So I don't know that he was even writing a book review by that time. He was expounding what he had said.

Shearer

And he didn't have any pastimes, hobbies, or other engagements that you could--?

Hayakawa

He drank a lot.

Shearer

How many people would typically be in a seminar?

---

Hayakawa

There would usually be, at the least, twelve or fifteen, sometimes many more than that.

Shearer

And the focus was on fixing--healing your personality? Is that the emphasis that he adopted?

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was from the beginning teaching, "the word is not the thing," and all the elementary points, leading people through this, and then through the implications. He would have private conferences, and tell people what they needed to do about themselves.

Hayakawa

Yes, he did. I never got into that. And you avoided it like poison. [laughter]

Shearer

He never had a chance to tell Marge how to fix herself up?

Hayakawa

Yes, he would say to her whenever there was a social gathering, "You must come to see me." She would look embarrassed as all hell, and flee as soon as possible. She just sort of doesn't react properly to authoritarian personalities.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I must have come between Don and Korzybski, in a way, when Don was trying to work with him, but Don always understood.

Hayakawa

I never said to you, "You must take one of Korzybski's seminars, if you want to continue living with me." [laughter]

Shearer

Were there any instances where, as Don's wife, you were expected to be present, or behave, or perform in a certain way?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I think I did accompany Don sometimes to gatherings at the Institute of General Semantics--at the end of seminars or something. I was always interested in being around, as long as I wasn't going to get ensnared into being a disciple. As far as other faculty things at Illinois Institute of Technology, I never did participate very much in college faculty life. I always have been leery of organizations formed on the basis of somebody else's affiliation that was not mine. I had enough to do. So I used that as an excuse. I would show up once a year at a faculty tea or something to show that I was not hostile, but I was too busy with other things. But if Don had asked me, "Please go to that meeting, because everybody expects you to be there," I would have gone.

Shearer

It sounds like you had worked out a pretty comfortable way of--

Hayakawa

Not doing what she doesn't want to do.

---

Shearer

[laughs] Yes. Well, congratulations. That sounds like an achievement to me.

Involvement in the Co-op Movement in Chicago

Shearer

I just wanted to warn you that I'll be asking you about your connections to the co-op movement next time.

Hayakawa

I don't know about you, but we were sort of ideologically against the whole capitalist profit system, weren't we, and the cooperative was far from being communism. It was a way of conducting business that sort of guarantees through its very functioning a nonexploitative view toward the consumer.

Shearer

How did you develop that point of view?

Hayakawa

Well, I joined some of those gasoline and oil service station co-ops in Wisconsin.

Mrs. Hayakawa

The Wausau co-op. That was served by the Midland Cooperative Wholesale, which published a newspaper which you got as a member. This weekly or semi-monthly paper was full of idealistic people writing about the motives and the workings of cooperatives. This made an awful lot of sense to us. And it tied people together, instead of operating on the usual hostilities such as some of our radical friends were involved in, wanting to remake the world. The co-op movement was going to remake the world by bringing people together, and they would work it out themselves in a democratic way. It was a very powerful idea, and then we read James Peter Warvasse, and--oh, who were some of the writers--

Hayakawa

Horace Kallen.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Horace Kallen, and the guy in Kansas who started the cooperative hospital. There was a wealth of activity going on. We got into the cooperative movement. Don became a board member of the cooperative wholesale--

Shearer

This is still in Wisconsin?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, that was after we got to Chicago. I became a board member of the Hyde Park Co-op, and I helped to found the South Shore Co-op, and we joined and patronized the People's Cooperative in

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the black neighborhood near Illinois Institute of Technology. They all needed patronage.

Shearer

This was also a grocery?

Mrs. Hayakawa

That was a grocery. I don't know how we managed to buy as many groceries as we did--[laughing]. Anyway, that was a big part of our lives.

Hayakawa

I think we were both interested in reforming the capitalist system, that is, the distribution of the profits.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. A different method of organization we thought was more constructive, that is, returning the profits to the consumer.

Hayakawa

And non-exploitative.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Then I--

Hayakawa

Then you went on the board of--

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, I went on the staff of Central States Co-op, because various people like Bill Torma and Laurie Lehtin were drafted during the war, and they had a shortage of staff, so I became assistant education director, presumably covering the whole Middle West. But I didn't travel around very much. In wartime, you couldn't. I edited the Co-op News, the paper for this area. I still somewhere have a file of the Co-op News from those years.

Hayakawa

There were a lot of Finns involved in this. We made so many Finnish friends at that time, people like Torma, Lehtin, Hannula, Aahonen. Yes. They brought their co-op ideology with them from Finland, I guess.

Shearer

At the time that you were active in the co-ops, was there an explicit or implicit resonance between the co-op movement and general semantics?

Hayakawa

No. Those were independent of each other.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Just a number of balls in the court.

Shearer

I see. There was no intellectual link to the--

Hayakawa

No, not between those two movements. But part of what I think we both thought at the time was that the capitalist system was essentially exploitative, and we liked the idea of cooperatives in which there is no exploitation, in which business is

---

organized to actually serve the people, rather than to make a profit.

Shearer

Or to deceive, perhaps?

Mrs. Hayakawa

The more who are with us, the more we shall all benefit, was the idea. The hope is that it sort of spreads out and brings people together. And it really did, in a way--all these various strains of European cooperators in the Chicago area. There were Lithuanians, for example, who had co-ops, and we got to know all these people and thought it was really a very remarkable experience, just finding friends from working class people in Waukegen, and the university people in Hyde Park.

Hayakawa

And the Finns all over the place.

Shearer

Was there much connection, co-op to co-op, or were you free agents who flowed from one to another--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, the co-ops had a wholesale which they owned jointly, and that served them and provided an education department, which was propagandist and provided a newspaper and whatever other materials, publications, and just membership things they wanted.

Hayakawa

You edited the newspaper?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. It was a service organization as well as a wholesale supply, and they pioneered in grade labeling; they had two different colors, red for the top grade, grade A, and green for either B or C, depending upon which was the best consumer value. They taught people how to buy wisely. That was one of the ideas, consumer information.

Shearer

I'm thinking again of your comment on the drawbacks of the capitalist system, in which the consumer is essentially exploited for the profit of the producer. I know that production and sales depend heavily on advertising which, as you have pointed out in some of your later writings, seeks to persuade by indirection and sometimes outright deception. Was this adjunct to the capitalist system--that is, the advertising--offensive to you as a general semanticist? I mean, was it contrary to your best instincts, semanticist's instincts?

Hayakawa

I think so.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think that's a good point.

Hayakawa

I didn't put that together as explicitly as that, but I've tended to resist advertising.

---

Shearer

It sounded to me as though the exploitation factor was troubling to you and obvious to you right from the beginning.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think he wrote a lot about advertising in that vein. Don, you felt that you were avoiding this kind of thing by having consumer information as a substitute.

Shearer

Certainly, consumer information sounds as though it's more extensional than the other type of information.

Mrs. Hayakawa

It doesn't sell as well, I can tell you that. [laughter] Alas, for the cooperatives. There were thousands and thousands of cooperative members and adherents in those days. Well, it's very nice to talk about what we're going to talk about next time. [laughter]

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VIII Writing for the Chicago Defender

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##

Shearer

This is interview 6 on May 24, and we are looking at some pages of the Chicago Defender. I'd like you to think back to those days [1942 to 1946] and recall how it was that you were asked to write for the Defender, a black newspaper.

Hayakawa

I don't remember how I first met Dr. Metz Lochard. [spells name] He had some kind of doctor's degree (we always called him Dr. Lochard). He spoke French as well as English.

Shearer

He was the publisher?

Hayakawa

He was the editor. He was a reasonably well-educated man. He sort of fancied himself an intellectual. I was glad to join in with him and treat him as one. It was he who hired me to go on the Chicago Defender. Later on, I discovered that nobody else on the Defender staff had any particular enthusiasm for me.

Shearer

Oh, really? [laughter]

Hayakawa

I never got to know them particularly well. Dr. Lochard took all my time on the occasion when I visited the Chicago Defender office.

Fellow Columnists

Shearer

I noted that you joined the Defender along with four other columnists. There was a big announcement of the five of you joining the staff. And, of course, Langston Hughes--

Hayakawa

Langston Hughes was the only one of them I really knew well. Who were the others?

---

Shearer

There was John Robert Badger, who was billed as a West Coast writer on world affairs, and his column was called "World Views." Walter White, secretary of the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People].

Hayakawa

He's a very famous man. I remember him. But he wasn't around in Chicago; he was in New York, I think. He sent his columns in. But he was a very important man at that time.

Shearer

So you didn't have much to do with him because he wasn't on scene. The other person was Dr. U. G. Dailey.

Hayakawa

I don't even remember the name.

Shearer

He was a Chicago surgeon and a professor at Northwestern. And he wrote a column called "Until the Doctor Comes."

Hayakawa

I don't remember that at all.

Shearer

Langston Hughes' column was called "Here to Yonder." Do you remember the reason?

Hayakawa

I don't remember that general title. I have some of his books downstairs.

Shearer

How did you become acquainted with Langston Hughes? Was it through the paper?

Hayakawa

Through the paper, pretty much. He wrote lovely children's books.

Shearer

That's right. And quite wonderful poems, as well. So he was based in Chicago?

Hayakawa

I don't know. I did meet him occasionally, though, so he may have been based in Chicago at that time.

Shearer

In one of your columns you referred to Hughes and his challenge to his readers to be a little unconventional about food tastes. I think the column was called "Food for Thought." You took up that challenge and went one step further and asked people to consider, I guess in semantic terms, how descriptive words influence our feelings about food. You went on to say that hamburger is much more palatable when we think of it as hamburger than when we consider it as "dead cow." I got a sense that you were having a dialogue with Hughes, at least from time to time, on the editorial page.

---

Hayakawa

I don't recall that I did that but I wouldn't be surprised if I did. That is, I may have commented on his columns and he may have commented on mine. We were on friendly terms anyway. I didn't see him very often. He didn't turn up in the Chicago Defender office very often either.

Shearer

What sort of a man was he, personally? Do you remember anything about his appearance or his manner?

Hayakawa

Yes. He was a very gentle, quiet man. Never saw him drunk or angry. Not that we associated with each other that much. Very gentlemanly. Just a very nice fellow.

Shearer

At one point in one of your columns, you took another columnist to task, someone who wrote, I believe, under the pseudonym Charlie Cherokee.

Hayakawa

I don't remember who he was. Was he a sports writer?

Shearer

He seemed to have a general column. I'm just checking here-- Oh, I know. He had criticized a prior column of yours in which you had suggested that it would be helpful if people could put themselves in the shoes of another and write a little essay to one's self on "If I Were a Negro." Cherokee said, essentially, that this is not helpful, that white people shouldn't do this. I think your rejoinder was that not only should white people write a little essay on "If I Were a Negro," but Negroes ought to write a little essay on "If I Were a Jew," and on and on to the next category of humankind.

Issues Discussed

Zoot Suits

Shearer

I wanted to call your attention to a couple of columns you wrote under the heading of what I would call race relations. One had to do with zoot suits and the rebellious young people who wore them. Would you like to look this over and then comment on what the controversy was all about?

Hayakawa

I have a column here on young men in zoot suits. Zoot suiters are usually underprivileged kids. Many of them are victims of discrimination. [reads]

---

"Their clothes are a strange but understandable expression of their discontent with the meaninglessness of slum life. Some, perhaps many, zoot suiters are delinquents. And tough city kids are hard to handle, reet pleats or no pleats." [laughter] We called them "reet" pleats.

Shearer

Meaning "all reet" as in all right?

Hayakawa

"Let's number our sailors and zoot suiters so we can follow the course of events. Sailor A gets beaten up by zoot suiters 1 and 2. Sailors B and C, friends of Sailor A, decide to avenge their pal. They meet zoot suiters 3 and 4, who are innocent, and beat them up. Thereupon zoot suiters 3 and 4 righteously and indignant for having been beaten up for something they haven't done, collect their friends, zoot suiters 5 and 6, and four of them beat up Sailors D and E, who also hadn't done anything. By this time, all sailors assume that all zoot suiters are thugs, and all zoot suiters assume that all sailors are their enemies. No wonder hell breaks loose." [laughter] That's funny, isn't it?

Shearer

Yes. And it seems to have a very strong connection to reality, too.

Hayakawa

[still reading] "How about the police while these storm clouds are gathering? A key to the situation is revealed in a United Press dispatch dated June 8. `Until open war broke out,' it says, `city officials of Los Angeles had been content to let the irate sailors clean up the condition that had perplexed them for several months.' " In other words, the city officials had been winking at mob law dealt out by sailors. I'm not criticizing the sailors. Mobs of sailors, mobs of zoot suiters, mobs of theatergoers, mobs of vigilantes. They're all pretty much alike. But I am criticizing the city officials who, if the United Press account is accurate, permitted the illegal handling by sailors of what should have been their own job--the prevention of juvenile delinquency.

Shearer

After having read some of your writings in the field of general semantics, it's also pretty clear to me that this is a wonderful illustration of the danger of categorizing people on the basis of one salient feature, which in this case would be the clothing--the zoot suit.

Hayakawa

What's next?

Shearer

Would you care to comment on the function of the zoot suit as a symbol?

---

Hayakawa

[reads] "The zoot suit is not to be regarded just as an extreme fashion or a crazy idea kids get. The zoot suit is a symbol of the youthful rebellion against the deariness of slum life. It is a symbol of the dash and glory that these young people would like to have but cannot get. And because these kids cannot belong anywhere in our society, it is their symbol of at least belonging to a society of their own creation. That is why zoot suits are popular in the poorest sections of great cities, where the schools are most crowded and people generally have the toughest time getting along. That is why Italian slum children in New York, Mexican kids in Los Angeles, Negro youths in practically all large cities go in for zoot suits. What all these zoot suits mean, to those who will take the trouble to understand, is something like this: Give us kids something significant to do. Give us jobs in something besides car laundries and shoeshine parlors. Give us goals that we can work for. Stop dangling before our eyes all the glamour of American life from your movies, your advertisements, your radio programs, at the same time as you tell us we can't have any of it because we are `wops,' `dagos,' or `niggers.' We've got the energy to work, to study, to build, to fight. Take us out of our meaningless street life and give us a chance!" That's nice.

Shearer

It's very heartfelt and, I must say, out-front championing of zoot suiters as an expression of youthful rebellion and hope. I'm thinking ahead to some of the students on campus, who were wearing different fashions, in the forties, fifties, and sixties. How did you regard the students you were teaching at the Illinois Institute of Technology and later at the University of Chicago. Was there a rebellious element among the students?

Hayakawa

Not at Illinois Tech, for the very simple reason that they were practically all engineering students, or they would have gone somewhere else. Almost all of them were from the first generation in their families having got as far as college. They were children of immigrants, children of Polish, Lithuanian, and other families.

I remember there was a lot of affection. [laughs] I remember the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The radio stations were full of that news. One of my students, I guess of Polish or Lithuanian descent, called us on the telephone and said, "Hey, Doc, are dey boddering you?" The whole bunch of them had been discussing this matter. The Japanese had started the war against the United States, and they were afraid that the neighbors might gang up on us. They were coming to protect us.

---

Co-op Movement

Shearer

Another theme that threaded through your columns was the efficacy of the co-op movement in terms of a democratic structure that was welcoming to people of all races and creeds. In your column called, "My One-Track Mind," of May 29, 1943, you talk about the convention at Ida B. Wells, which I guess is the name of a--

Hayakawa

A housing project. Mostly blacks, I guess entirely blacks.

Shearer

So this was a cooperative housing project?

Hayakawa

No, it was a housing project publicly maintained, I think. But some of the people who lived there started to form a grocery co-op, if I remember correctly. And I, being part of the cooperative movement in Chicago, was among those people who encouraged them to go ahead with the idea. I think that was the situation.

Shearer

In your description of the events at that convention, you comment on how for people who are accustomed to a kind of self-conscious and artificial politeness of carefully staged racial goodwill meetings, there was a surprisingly relaxed crowd who, for two days argued, debated, conversed, kidded, and ate together, danced together, and reflected a spirit of comradeship.

Hayakawa

Co-op people were like that. They brought strangers in, and the generally relaxed atmosphere became infectious, and total strangers began to act like members of the same society.

Shearer

Did you get any feedback on the subject of co-ops, or consumer movements? You frequently wrote about co-ops in your columns.

Hayakawa

Not very much. I don't recall that there was any feedback.

Shearer

Did you have the sense that some of the black people that you worked with had become aware of the co-op movement through your columns?

Hayakawa

I don't know to what extent that was true. We did have a co-op within the Negro district, so there was an overlap there of some people who read my columns, who were also members or supporters

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of the co-op. But that wasn't a big thing. That co-op within the Negro district on 47th Street did not do well.

Shearer

Why was that?

Hayakawa

I just don't know.

Shearer

This was the grocery co-op you're speaking of?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

Well, I remember from our previous conversations that Marge had said that you and she had made an effort to go over there and shop in that co-op because they were kind of "hurting" for patronage.

Hayakawa

The co-op near to where we lived was near the University of Chicago and that co-op was doing very well and still is, as a matter of fact. There were a lot of intellectuals around the University of Chicago who were supporting it, too. I think it probably was one of the most successful co-ops in the Midwest.

Shearer

Do you think the concentration of middle class and well-educated people in the environs had a lot to do with its success?

Hayakawa

[laughs] Oh, yes.

Shearer

I noted that in the fanfare announcing your beginning as a columnist along with Langston Hughes and Walter White, that you were described as a sincere, "anti-Axis battler." I took that to be an attempt to alert your readers to the fact that you were--

Hayakawa

I wasn't pro-Japan.

Shearer

--an "okay" American.

Hayakawa

I don't remember that. Everybody was pretty nice to me at the Defender. I think they were pleased that a non-Negro would join them. They always treated me very well at the Chicago Defender.

Dangers of Nazi Racial Policies

Shearer

Frequent topics for your discussion were some of the war issues, particularly those related to the Nazi racial policy, expounded

---

by Hitler. There's a column on April 17, 1943, in which you talk about human "grade labeling" and go on to describe "Grade A" and "Grade B" and so forth, with A being the Aryan Germans, the Herrenvolk; Grade B would be people of nations allied with the Axis. Nordic people were Grade C (Netherlanders, Danes), and so on and so on, down to its logical absurd extreme. Did you feel that this was not fully grasped by the readership of the Chicago Defender?

Hayakawa

Negroes would be Grade Z, wouldn't they? [laughs]

Shearer

According to the Nazi theory, yes. I'm thinking that some of the articles featured in the Defender, which I read week after week as I was preparing for this interview, are really heartbreaking. They are accounts of the Red Cross refusing blood donations from black people and the army refusing to allow more than certain quotas of black people to serve in various branches of the armed services, and segregated medical facilities. This must have been extremely distressing to black people.

Hayakawa

I think at that time, those conditions would have been taken for granted by Negroes and whites alike. I think if they weren't separated, it would have made both the blacks and whites uncomfortable. In the 1940s there was a hell of a long way to go on this matter of race.

##

[discussion of the Hayakawas' art collection from Africa and China from the T'ang Dynasty and Sung Dynasty]

Celebration of African Art and Sculpture

Shearer

I wanted to call your attention to a couple of your Defender columns on the subject of art. One I thought might place in time some of your first collecting of art. The name of the column is "Presents from Us to You." [January 23, 1943] They are [reading] "plaster reproductions purchased from the Museum of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia of masterpieces of African Negro sculpture." I'll let you describe them.

Hayakawa

[reads description of objects] I don't remember these pieces.

Shearer

Of course, these are plaster reproductions that you acquired in the forties, so maybe they haven't survived. But I was

---

interested in the fact that you were recommending them to your readers with some commentary on the joy of living among these art objects rather than viewing them at a distance in a museum. (I gather that they were relatively inexpensive.)

Hayakawa

[reading] "The solemn, narrow eyes and pointed mouth of the goat mask, the firm, purposeful glance of the wild pig, the eager square-round snout of the hippopotamus are always there to calm one down and steady one's poise. Each of them has an internal and organic rightness, the product of an unknown craftsman's sure sense of design, elegance, and proportion. Are they great art? I would say so. Having them around the house, it is easy to understand why African Negro art, especially sculpture, was so profound an influence on the greatest of modern painters--Picasso, Modigliani, Rouault, Braque, Derain, and Matisse."

---

IX Interest in Art, Music, and Design

Collecting African and Chinese Art

Shearer

When did you start collecting African art?

Hayakawa

We started collecting Chinese art and African art in Chicago in the forties.

[shows interviewer photographic catalog of collection]

I was attending the University of Michigan for some classes in linguistics. I went to an eight o'clock class and found that the meeting I was supposed to go to was at 8 p.m.. And there I was, in the a.m., on campus--

Shearer

--with twelve hours to kill!

Hayakawa

So I went to a drugstore and had a Coke and a doughnut and went back to see what I could do for the rest of the morning. I wandered into a course on Chinese art. And I don't know anything about Chinese art. I figured I might as well kill an hour by going into that class.

The professor was a little man who looked a bit like Charlie Chaplin.

Shearer

Oh, really? This was on the campus of the University of Michigan? Oh, this was when you went back to take the Thomas Knott course and work on the dictionary--

Hayakawa

Yes, the Middle English dictionary. The first thing this professor did was to go around the class and ask, "Are you taking this course for credit?" If you said, "No, I'd like to audit," he threw you out. So then it got down to me and I said, "I'm taking it for credit." [laughter] Later on he discovered I had a Ph.D., so it didn't matter. (And I was welcome anyway.) See, after you have a Ph.D., you can't get credits. Unless

---

you're going into an entirely new field. I got to be very good friends with him.

Shearer

So this really started your interest in collecting Chinese art?

Hayakawa

Yes. He was an Englishman, named Plumer, with this tremendous background. He had been in some kind of British civil service in India or in China and he knew an awful lot about Oriental art.

Shearer

[examining catalog] This is a lovely vase here, with the deep purple. I'm still looking for information on your carved pig.

Hayakawa

Some of these things are put away--the pair of bronze ducks, for example.

Shearer

Oh, so you rotate your collection. Let me know if you come across that pig; he is a noble animal.

Did Professor Plumer advise you on Chinese art or accompany you on shopping trips?

Hayakawa

We did our own shopping.

Shearer

I notice that you compared the African art--its level of distinctive abstraction--to Mondrian and some of the other modern European artists. Was this connection generally recognized in the time that you were writing?

Hayakawa

There must have been some kind of popular interest in the subject, but mostly on the part of pretty sophisticated connoisseurs.

Shearer

So this was unusual that you would be writing in the newspaper column to the general reader and, in particular, the general reader of a black newspaper?

Hayakawa

Yes, I guess so.

Shearer

Did you ever have a sense that your discussions of African art in the columns of the Defender resonated with your readership?

Hayakawa

Did I mention African art in the Defender?

Shearer

You did. You told how you had gone to the University of Pennsylvania Art Museum and purchased these plaster reproductions of some very distinguished African sculptures.

Hayakawa

Oh yes, I remember.

---

Shearer

I had looked at your article for Transformation (Appendix B), which was in the first edition--

Hayakawa

The only issue.

Shearer

Oh, was it the only one? You and Mondrian and Buckminster Fuller and--who else was contributing to that number? Oh, Le Corbusier and--

Hayakawa

That magazine Transformation had one issue and that was all. That was the end of it.

Shearer

Your article was very interesting to me. You referred to Benjamin Lee Whorf and his thesis that the language we inherit largely determines the kinds of thoughts we have. (The thought is not detachable from the language with which it is expressed.) You went on to say that just as most people believe that words are direct representations of reality, so we tend to believe that tradition and familiar styles of art of the West are the direct representations--or the imitations--of reality. But in fact they are abstractions. And when you look across cultures at the way other cultures abstract from reality, you can see this clearly, and that modern art seeks an alternative way of abstracting. You were talking then about pointillism, futurism, cubism, and so forth.

Hayakawa

What are you reading from?

Shearer

I'm reading from my notes, actually, from this article you wrote in Transformation.

Hayakawa

Do they have that at the UC library?

Shearer

I got this from your files.

Hayakawa

That's pretty rare since there never was a second issue.

Shearer

I think that is noted in your files. You do have several copies so I didn't take your only one.

It was clear from the article that modern art appealed to you mightily and I'm wondering if you can think back to the beginning of that "love affair," and tell me what it was that appealed to you or excited you.

Hayakawa

It's pretty hard to put your finger on. So much art, until early in the twentieth century, was strictly representational. People wanted the Duke of Wellington to look like the Duke of Wellington and made as photographic as possible. In a sense,

---

the development of photography made an awful lot of art obsolete. Didn't need it anymore. You could get a better picture with a good camera. In a sense, the camera has liberated the artist to do all sorts of things that you can't do with a camera. So I was always ready to appreciate art from, let's say, Michelangelo or anybody else, who painted before photography came along and therefore, gave what we hope are accurate reproductions of the reality that they were seeing. After the camera came along, no one could paint as accurately as a photograph.

Shearer

I was interested in your commentary on the levels of abstraction that the artist struggles to achieve and the kinds of conventions that seem to operate even when an artist is trying to represent reality. I'm thinking, for example, of Rubens. If you looked at the paintings of Rubens and thought that this was an accurate representation of the people of his time, you'd think that people looked quite different. They were all 250 pounds, and very round and very rosy. And I don't think probably everybody looked--

Hayakawa

--quite like that! [laughter]

Chicago Institute of Design, Moholy-Nagy

Shearer

How did you come to attend the Institute of Design of Moholy-Nagy?

Hayakawa

This was during the Second World War. I was a Canadian citizen and not able to become naturalized by the racial laws then existing in the United States. So I was not eligible for the draft or anything else. So being a Japanese in Chicago, where there were no Japanese, presents the recruiting officer with a problem of what the hell to do with this guy. There was a war going on. As a male, I had this problem: I didn't want to be left out. At the same time I just felt I didn't want to go into any goddamn war. One thing, since I seemed to be exempt from any kind of American draft, I wondered whether the Canadians would have any use for me. I went to the Canadian consul general in Chicago, at the time. He couldn't think of a thing to do with me either.

Shearer

Oh, no.

---

Hayakawa

So I sat out the war and continued to teach at Illinois Tech. That's the time I went to art school with Moholy-Nagy. I spent a lot of time, summer session after summer session.

Shearer

Was the incentive, the pressure to enlist, coming from within? Or did you feel that comments were made?

Hayakawa

The Second World War, from the point of view of the male, you know, is The Event--the historical event. You don't want to be completely left out of it. So, as I said, I went to the Canadian consul general to see if they wanted me. And they didn't know what the hell to do.

Shearer

Oh, dear.

Hayakawa

What was I leading up to?

Shearer

You were saying how you came to attend the Institute of Design. So did that free up time for you that would have been spent in another way?

Hayakawa

Yes, it freed up time in a big way. So I went to the Institute of Design. Gosh, the summer sessions of '42 or '43. I became very good friends with Moholy. I did quite a lot of art work.

[tape interruption]

Shearer

You showed me this wood sculpture once, and I was so impressed. This is an extraordinary piece. I'm holding a graceful, wavelike sculpture you made in class.

Hayakawa

Essentially, the beginning of that piece of sculpture was a gluing exercise.

Shearer

That's what it was! Such a mundane assignment!

Hayakawa

We had to learn how to glue completely properly so that there were no indications of gluing.

##

Hayakawa

So I took six little pieces of flat wood. I got them out of the waste left over from other people doing their work. I think there are six different woods there from scraps. So they were all little flat pieces.

Shearer

So it was a block, essentially? Or a stack of blocks glued together when you started?

---

Hayakawa

Yes. When I started, they were six little boards of different thickness. I glued them all together. Then I started to carve.

Shearer

I see. That is just extraordinary, how the carving has been enhanced by and enhances the striping of the glued sections. That's gorgeous.

Hayakawa

You see the problem from the sculptor's point of view. Here you have, essentially, a rectangle. Made out of other rectangles. Then, you try to sculpt something out of it to break out of that rectangularity. So that everything seems to flow. The fact that they were flat boards once upon a time disappears.

Shearer

You'd never guess. Never. It fits the hand so well.

Hayakawa

It's lithe and sinuous. [laughter]

Shearer

Do you have a photograph of this?

Hayakawa

No, I don't think so.

Shearer

Well, we should photograph this for the oral history. Was this a major project?

Hayakawa

There was a six- or eight-week course. I don't know how long it took me to make this. Somewhere within that six or eight weeks of summer session.

Shearer

Looking at the object, the sculpture which this now is, can you recall what it was like to work on it--to give a window on your creative process, at least for this project.

Hayakawa

Well it starts out, as I recall this very clearly and vividly, Moholy-Nagy, who was our teacher, saying, "What we need to do next is an exercise in gluing." [laughs] What you have to do to wood is to make it completely flat so that it will fit against another piece of wood, which has to be equally flat. Then you have to glue them together. Otherwise the gluing doesn't work. Things fall apart. So I found scraps of wood from other people's work from the wastebasket and glued them all together and then I had a big hunk of wood. Then the idea of the exercise is to break up completely any thought of flat pieces of wood being put together, so the flatness disappears into something with a flowing shape.

Shearer

In your article for Transformation, you describe the more modern artists as unabashedly focusing on the materials at hand. If there is going to be yarn or rope or plaster or whatever, it's

---

kind of, "Look at this." And if there is going to be paint applied to canvas, the very strokes themselves are offered to the viewer.

Hayakawa

Yes, I remember.

Shearer

I seem to recall that Moholy-Nagy was in the first issue of ETC. His work illustrated Oliver Bloodstein's article on modern art? Is that how you met Moholy-Nagy at the Institute, or had you known him earlier?

Hayakawa

No, I first met him as a student in the Institute of Design. This was during the Second World War.

During the war a lot of Japanese moved to Chicago. But when the war first started, there was nobody around; most of the Japanese were out here on the West Coast--California, Oregon, Washington.

Shearer

Did you ever fear being interned?

Hayakawa

No. They only relocated people who were residents of the Pacific Coast, and the government moved them inland--to Wyoming or Montana, Utah, Colorado. They had big relocation camps for them during the war. But I was living in Chicago, so I was already inland so they didn't bother me.

Incidentally, the Japanese on the West Coast had an opportunity to move inland voluntarily, and many came to settle in Chicago. Some of them stayed with us for as long as a year. We discovered a whole family of relatives we didn't know we had.

Shearer

You continued to teach at the Illinois Institute of Technology and to study at the Institute of Design for, I guess, two or more years--

Hayakawa

I know I was around there for quite a while because I became such good friends with Moholy-Nagy.

Here's my teacher and my friend. [shows interviewer book with photograph] I take off the dust jackets when they get beat up and paste them inside.

Shearer

This is a very substantial work.

---

Who else was studying at the Institute when you were there? Anyone of note?

Hayakawa

The only person who had some kind of reputation of his own was an architect whose name was Chermayeff. A very unpleasant fellow. He kept an enormous distance between himself and the rest of the class. He came to study with Moholy-Nagy and learn something of his philosophy and approach to art, but he made it clear that he was not just one of the kids.

Shearer

How so?

Hayakawa

Well, it was summer session when we all got together at the Institute with Moholy-Nagy. So many of the students were young women, because the young men had already been drafted. One or two young men were there because they couldn't get into the army for some disability or other and Moholy welcomed the very few men he had in his class. We became very good friends.

He had a wonderful way. You were working at your drawing or carving or whatever you were doing, everyone at his own desk, and he would come around to see what you were doing. He'd stand behind you and look at your drawing or sculpture. Then just before he moved onto the next student, he would lean over and say in a very confidential way, "Go on from zare [pronouncing `there' with a Hungarian accent]." [laughter]

Shearer

That must have been welcome indeed. So his stature was such that this kind of encouragement was really meaningful?

Hayakawa

Yes, I think so. It was very, very nice.

Shearer

Was he ever directive to you?

Hayakawa

No. This was what came out of a gluing exercise! Here's some little pieces of wood, you know. Now go ahead and do something with them. But glue them.

Shearer

Do you recall any commentary from him?

Hayakawa

No, he was very nice with it when the project was over, but he didn't push it along. He didn't come along and say, "What are you doing; you're doing it wrong."

Shearer

Did it please him to see how you had handled the assignment?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes, of course; he was tickled to death!

---

[Mark enters]

Shearer

Hello, Mark. How are you?

Mark

I'm fine.

Hayakawa

Did you have breakfast yet?

Mark

No.

Hayakawa

Did you have lunch?

Mark

[nods affirmatively]

Hayakawa

I guess you had both at once. [laughs]

Shearer

I'm aware now that this is lunch time. Are you ready for lunch or can you have one or two more questions?

Hayakawa

All right; go ahead.

Shearer

Do you have any more samples of projects you worked on at the Institute of Design.

Hayakawa

This took up most of the summer session. Well, come with me and I'll show you a watercolor I did. [Mrs. H. enters. Interviewer and Hayakawa examine his water color and the pottery created by Mrs. H.]

Shearer

Excuse me. [to Mrs. H.] I'm going to rudely point the mike at you while I ask you the next question. It sounds, and looks, to me from the lovely creations that you made during this time--

Mrs. Hayakawa

I started out at the University of Wisconsin summer school. I took classes, and this was one of my first pieces.

Shearer

That is lovely! It's kind of a rose clay--

Mrs. Hayakawa

It all came out in the end with our daughter becoming a potter. I never got on with it.

Shearer

Don, do you find that you miss the process of creating that you experienced in the Moholy-Nagy Institute?

Hayakawa

No, I really don't. In writing, one creates also, you know. So I have enough to do.

Shearer

It sounds as though you have more than enough to do. But I was wondering if that process that seemed to engage you so fully is

---

something that you picked from time to time. Or did it flourish mostly within that period?

Hayakawa

Mostly in that period, yes.

Interest in Jazz

Shearer

When did you start with the music, the jazz? Nineteen forty-two, '43?

Hayakawa

That would be even earlier, I would say. When my father and mother moved away to go and live in Japan permanently, I was about 19--something like that. I went to live with a family, an English professor and his wife and two sons and a daughter.

Shearer

The Allisons?

Hayakawa

Yes. Carlyle is dead. Gerard died recently at about age 85. Mary Jo, the girl, is still alive, living in Vancouver. She's been a widow for some time, I think. With grown-up daughters.

Where were we?

Shearer

I was wondering if your interest in music began at the same time as your study at the Institute of Design. You were saying that your interest in jazz preceded your years in Chicago.

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. Especially when I went to live with the Allisons. You see, Gerard and I became very good friends. At his house, with his encouragement and Mary Jo's, and the whole family's encouragement, I used to play ragtime and popular songs like, "Yes, We Have No Bananas." Things like that.

Shearer

This was on the piano?

Hayakawa

On the piano.

Shearer

I see. Did you have a piano in your house when you were growing up?

Hayakawa

I think we did.

Shearer

Who played besides you?

Hayakawa

No, I think we didn't have a piano. And I played the mandolin.

---

Shearer

So it was at the Allison's house that you started to play the piano?

Hayakawa

It seems strange to say I started there, because it seems to me I didn't have to learn.

Shearer

Well, everybody says that you play just wonderfully by ear. So perhaps you didn't have to learn.

[tape interruption]

Comments on Frank Lloyd Wright

Shearer

I've just asked you how you feel about Frank Lloyd Wright and his work.

Hayakawa

I think I'll get in trouble with Marge if I say this, but he was a little too romantic for my taste. [laughs]

Shearer

You've said that occasionally you find yourself delighted by what he's done. Can you think of any particular examples that appeal to you?

Hayakawa

Well, every time I see a building of his, I am pleased to see it--I wouldn't alter a bit of it. But at the same time, if I were asking him to build for me, it would be more in the direction of a more severe, restrained kind of Corbusier-like architecture, I think. Now I haven't thought this out very hard.

Shearer

Are you thinking in terms of what pleases your eye? Or what would function well with your style of life--your books, the display of your art, and the kind of light that you like to live in?

Hayakawa

I'm very happy right here in this environment. I would have said, before it happened, that is too ornamental for me. [points] That's very Frank Lloyd Wrightish--

Shearer

You mean the segmentation of the ceiling?

Hayakawa

Also those little orange triangles.

Shearer

Yes, now I'm very aware of the details.

---

Hayakawa

You see, it kind of lights up. [flicking switch that illuminates a pattern in the geometric divisions of the ceiling]

Shearer

Oh, yes. I see. The light panels show the redwood cutouts.

Hayakawa

I like it very much.

Shearer

But it surprised you, that you do like it?

Hayakawa

No, no. It was my brother-in-law who designed this, and he's a disciple of Frank Lloyd Wright. But if I had superintended the designing of it--if I had been the only voice in the decision, it would have been much more spare.

Shearer

Thank you for commenting on that delicate question. [laughter]

---

X Family and Child Raising

---

##

The Neighborhood

Shearer

Today we're going to talk about family and child raising. Just to set the scene, where were you living when Alan was born?

Mrs. Hayakawa

We were living on Hyde Park Boulevard, in a nice, big apartment we had picked up during the war years when they were really becoming available to rent. We later bought the building because we liked it so well; we didn't want anybody putting us out. It had a very nice yard for the children.

Shearer

This was the ten-room apartment which you found when Don was away?

Hayakawa

When I was visiting at the University of Denver. She called me and said, "How would you like to have a ten-room apartment?"

Mrs. Hayakawa

You wouldn't believe what it cost. I can't remember now for sure. I think we moved from the old place that cost $60 a month. I think this new one may have cost $120 a month. That's what prices were like.

Shearer

And was it 1946 that you moved?

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was earlier; the war was still on.

Shearer

Was this overlooking Hyde Park?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No. Hyde Park Boulevard was a street. It did have nice trees on both sides.

Shearer

But this was very definitely in the neighborhood of the University of Chicago?

---

Hayakawa

Yes; a little far for walking, but you could walk it.

Shearer

Was that when you changed jobs and went to work at the University of Chicago?

Hayakawa

No, but I did start teaching at the University of Chicago at the same time.

Shearer

Oh, I see; there was an overlap.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was never on the formal faculty of the University of Chicago. He was always regular faculty at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Shearer

So you were a lecturer at the University of Chicago at the same time you were regular faculty at Illinois Tech.

Deciding to Have Children

Shearer

How did you view the prospect of having and raising children?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, we'd been married so long, we liked our lifestyle very much. We realized there would be a change. But we thought it was high time we faced the question. We'd thought about it during the early years of the war, when we didn't know what was going to happen to Don. He was a non-naturalizable alien and could have been sent away to a relocation camp somewhere. So until that possibility was eliminated, we didn't want to think of having any children.

Shearer

When was that fear laid to rest?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I guess he went through several processings and he kept saying, "I'm a Canadian." It really peeved the authorities that the categories didn't work out very well.

Hayakawa

Even if I had been an American, it probably wouldn't have affected me very much. They were moving Japanese on the West Coast inland, and I was already inland.

Mrs. Hayakawa

A lot of them came to Chicago and stayed here.

Shearer

Who came on their own?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, they just came freely, when they were allowed to leave. People forget that now, that they were allowed to leave, if they

---

had a place to go to and the courage to go to a new place, not knowing how they'd be received. It took a lot of courage. But Chicago was very open.

Hayakawa

Some of them seemed happy to come here. There were a lot of Japanese in Chicago.

Shearer

What impact did that have on you? Did you then know more Japanese?

Mrs. Hayakawa

A lot of good restaurants opened up. Lots of grocery stores where you could buy Japanese food, at least.

Hayakawa

There was only one Japanese restaurant open before the war.

Shearer

Did you meet some of these Japanese people who were relocated?

Hayakawa

Yes, they included a family of relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Furuyama, two sons and two daughters.

Shearer

How did they feel about their move?

Hayakawa

She said, "what do you expect, there's a war on!"

Shearer

She didn't seem to take at all personally, that her loyalty was questioned?

Hayakawa

No, not at all.

Mrs. Hayakawa

People had a kind of common sense approach to the situation. It wasn't until much later that Japanese Americans took personal offense and became militant.

Hayakawa

I remember vividly that the two sons went into business--auto repair and dry cleaning--and did very well for themselves. Makio Muruyama was an atomic scientist from California. He stayed with us for a year and helped us by washing the dishes.

Shearer

What sort of dislocation did that cause him professionally?

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was able to continue his work at the University of Chicago.

Shearer

What year?

Hayakawa

He stayed with us a year, 1943. We lost contact with him after the war.

---

Community Activities, Chicago Blues

Shearer

At that time, just to recapitulate, Marge, you were involved in co-op activities as editor of the Co-op News. From 1942?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, I think so. I don't remember when I gave it up. Probably a little after Alan was born.

Shearer

I saw a letter to the Co-op board, in which you described yourself as "retiring editor." It was dated February 19, 1948.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I kept on then almost two years after Alan was born. I was also editor of the prose section of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.

Shearer

My sense of those activities that deal either with news or literary journals is that they are pretty open-ended jobs; you can work six hours a week or sixty hours a week, if you are dedicated and interested.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You can do a lot of it at home.

Shearer

Were there other organizations that involved you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I can't think of them right now. It was later that I got on the board of the association for retarded children.

Shearer

But before your children were born. I'm trying to get a picture of how "knitted in" both of you were to the intellectual and progressive community of that time. And you, Don, were writing for the Chicago Defender and doing outside lecturing--

Mrs. Hayakawa

You were interested in the Society for Modern Art. A lot of things like that.

Hayakawa

When did I give that tremendous lecture on the history of jazz at the Arts Club of Chicago?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes. That was terrific! Arts Club was a very fashionable club.

Hayakawa

Very upper crust.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Michigan Avenue club room. Society ladies were members and people who were patrons of the museum, and so on. Don really gave a wow of a lecture. It was--

Hayakawa

"Reflections on the History of Jazz."

---

Shearer

And this was reprinted, or rather described in a reprint that I saw as being first published in Poetry magazine?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, the lecture was sponsored by Poetry. It was a benefit for Poetry magazine. One of the associate editors of Poetry was a member of this club, Marian Strobel Mitchell. Strobel was the name under which she wrote as a poet. Also, there was Inez Stark Bolton, a member of the club, a poet, an art collector, and first reader of all the unsolicited poetry contributions to Poetry magazine.

Shearer

And the name of the club was the Arts Club?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

But was it associated with the museum?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, it was just a group of people who were supporters of art. I'm sure they were many independent supporters of different museums.

Hayakawa

It was a place where you could have elegant lunches. It was very "society."

Shearer

This was the illustrated lecture where you had Jimmy Yancy and--

Hayakawa

Where I had Jimmy and Mama (Estelle) Yancy. And all those wonderful people. [the following was added during a joint editing session with the Hayakawas] He's a self-taught pianist, plays by ear. Plays an incredible slow blues no one else in the world can play. He was that famous blues musician who worked as a grounds keeper for the Chicago White Sox. Mama Yancy was a singer. This kind of jazz was well known to sophisticated jazz collectors in England and the wider world. But it was totally unknown to show business people here, even in Chicago. His biggest audience was after the ball game when everyone was celebrating and he'd play the piano. He lived across the street from the Illinois Institute of Technology in the middle of a slum. I visited him many times.

The White Sox field was two blocks away. The grounds keepers all were black and all unlettered. They'd sit around after work in Mr. Yancy's living room, having a beer. I would drop in. They didn't talk to each other very much. Someone would say something like, How about Billie Boston? The next guy would say, Fuck him. The others would say, Yeah, Fuck him, etc., etc.

---

Shearer

Would this exhaust the subject?

Hayakawa

There would be a long silence. Then someone would say, How about Ray John Stone? The next guy would say, Fuck him, etc., etc.

Shearer

Who were these people they were talking about?

Hayakawa

Other grounds keepers, supervisors. People they had nasty things to say about.

Shearer

Was there music then?

Hayakawa

Yes, sometimes Jimmy would play, some of his own blues.

Shearer

How did you meet? At clubs?

Hayakawa

Yes, I suppose. I got to know Memphis Slim and Little Brother Montgomery. Big Crawford played a bull fiddle. [end of added material]

Mrs. Hayakawa

Then we organized a jazz concert at Mandel Hall with all those musicians.

Hayakawa

Yes, that was a benefit for the co-op nursery school. Did I mention that?

Shearer

Yes, you did. I'm just searching--

Mrs. Hayakawa

We certainly wandered off the subject here. [laughter]

Shearer

This is actually in response to my question of what sort of activities engaged you, what was your life style (pardon the expression) as a couple into which you were going to bring your family. You, Don, were researching and visiting jazz clubs--Cabin in the Sky and some of the other clubs in Chicago. Marge, did you accompany Don?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Sometimes; not always.

Shearer

You were busy, active. You were out in the world. But yet you thought it was time to start a family.

---

Parent's Reaction to Alan, Mark, and Wynne

Shearer

What was your mother's reaction when you decided to start a family? I'm directing it mainly to you, Marge, because your parents were closer--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, my father had died some years before that. My mother was living with her sisters and brothers in Hamilton, Ohio. They were a very close family, and I was very fond of them. Then, sadly, her sisters Augusta and Caroline and her brother Carl died--one of cancer and two of heart attacks--and very suddenly. So she was left alone. But by that time, she was very fond of Don. They got along very well indeed. All their fears for me and for us had evaporated. I don't know how she felt in advance of our having children, but I think she had this fear that mixed-race children were always looked down upon and they would have a bad start in life. She was fearful about that. After the fact, she could see that none of these things were going to happen. I think she felt very good about it. She was really dedicated--just crazy about Alan and the other children and a wonderful companion for them.

After Alan was born, she came to live with us and she was a permanent part of our family then.

Hayakawa

She was so wonderful to Alan.

Mrs. Hayakawa

She was very, very good with children. Although, as this article on communicating with children shows, she was somewhat more directive. But unconsciously so. Every contact with her was a possibility for education. She had a marvelous sense of what level on which the child could learn. She was really very, very skillful with children and very fond of Alan and Mark and then Wynne.

Shearer

On the other hand, was there a certain amount of pressure to have children? Often the older generation urges the young couple into raising a family.

Hayakawa

I don't think there was any pressure.

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, no, she was fearful of how it would be for our children. She just gradually got over that. It was just after the war and everyone was coming home and having children and having them close together. Getting on with having a family quickly. We felt the same way. Very soon after Alan, I had another pregnancy. I don't know what happened but I lost the baby.

---

Then we started again and had Mark. It was some time before we knew that Mark was retarded. He was eight months old before the doctors got around to telling us. We had thought everyone has a right to go at his own speed. And we accepted him as he was. He was so different from Alan; Alan was extremely fast. Way ahead of Gesell and all the stages.

Shearer

All the timetables that you had read of?

Mrs. Hayakawa

And Mark was behind. Well, we thought, some are ahead and some are behind.

Shearer

Had you questioned the doctor about these discrepancies?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

But the doctor had not ventured an opinion?

Mrs. Hayakawa

He hadn't until Mark was several months old. We had seen things but mentioning them seemed kind of disloyal to Mark. He had what other people would say were mongoloid features. Mongoloid was a name often used for Downs syndrome in those days. And we thought, well, he has a perfect right to have mongoloid features. [laughter] So there were several barriers to our finding out about it. I think he was seven or eight months old before the doctor said anything.

Shearer

Do you think the doctor had an idea before then and just delayed telling you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I'm sure. I'm sure he just didn't want to be the one to tell us until we had some kind of realization of this ourselves. I think we were too accepting of the differences, but then this was-- [long pause]

Dealing with Mark's Retardation

Shearer

How did you feel--maybe the answer is obvious. What was your response to this news? Did you get the news first?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I got it at the doctor's office. And I must say, I was wiped out. It was just a terrible, terrible blow. Don took it very well, much better than I did. It took me, well--I can't describe the feeling that it is. It's as if you had a cannon ball through your stomach. You feel it for weeks and months. But you go on. And Don was ready to go on and accept Mark as he

---

was. Oh, we had advice--from some of the doctors even--"You must put him away." That kind of advice.

Hayakawa

We had a lot of that advice.

Shearer

You mean even when he was a baby?

Hayakawa

Before we got too damned fond of him!

Shearer

I see.

Mrs. Hayakawa

We were in the minority at that time. I finally developed a stock answer: "Well, there is no I.Q. requirement for membership in this family."

Where did we write about this?

Hayakawa

Don't you remember that?

Shearer

I think there were several syndicated columns(Chicago) Register and Tribune Syndicate. May 1, 8, 15, 22, and 29, 1976. that dealt with the news that you received of Mark's diagnosis, and then living with a retarded child, what the future might hold for a retarded child, and how he got along with other children.

Hayakawa

These were columns of mine.

Shearer

Yes.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I have the memory of writing something with you. I wonder what it could have been? Anyway, we began to read a lot about mental retardation and I think ultimately we joined--what was it called? It's now called Aid to Retarded Citizens. But it was "retarded children," at first.

Shearer

Actually, the woman who founded that movement, or organization, lives in San Francisco. Her name is Margarete Connolly. She had a retarded child in 1951 and she experienced the same delay in diagnosis, because the doctor said his policy was not to say anything to the parents until it sort of dawned on them. He was very reluctant to take that responsibility. She started working right then to form Aid to Retarded Children. That would have been two or three years after Mark's birth.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, it was some years later. We didn't really need any support system. Daisy, by that time, had become a member of our household.

Shearer

Going back just a little bit, though, how was the news of Mark's situation received by your mother?

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

She faced this in her true heroic fashion with which she had accepted my father's death and the deaths of various members of her family within a very short time. She was terribly shaken but she was a very strong person and was not going to go to pieces over it.

Shearer

Had she been present after Mark's birth and in your household in the same way that she had been for Alan?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes.

Shearer

Had she noticed--

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't know that she noticed anything. We all noticed that Mark was slower and different. He was a very sweet baby. He was almost too easy a baby.

Hayakawa

We naturally assumed, Alan being extra smart, that Mark was just slower than Alan.

Shearer

So you really had no particular clue and no peer group of mothers who had children at the same time who noticed?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, we didn't. I never had a group of women friends who were having babies. I just didn't have that kind of association. Well, it does seem hard to believe that we were so long in--we weren't really closing our eyes to things; we were just accepting things as they were. Then we got the news and we began to--it was a terrible, terrible shock. I can remember for a couple of days just not wanting to see anybody. I was unable to present a face to the world.

Don was much more accepting. Very strong. Perhaps he didn't project into the future as much as I did, how it was going to be for all of us. I'm always one to borrow trouble. Anyway, we each took it in our own way. It seems to me he was having to go out and make a lecture the next day or so after this. He was perfectly competent to do it.

So we went on then, day after day and month after month, as Mark grew up and Alan grew up. He kept us very busy. We kept a book on Alan--a baby book. We have it still somewhere. It's Gesell-style. I don't know if you were too late for Arnold Gesell.

Shearer

Probably not.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Anyway, we kept a chart of Alan's growth as a record and noted what he did all along. He was very much ahead of schedule. Later, keeping the same kind of chart for Mark, we kind of dropped off because, you know, there wasn't much to report. And when we knew it would go on that way, we just didn't continue; the heart wasn't in it. It probably would have been interesting if we had continued it on, writing a short daily diary. Unless you do it daily, you just don't do it.

Daisy Joins the Household

Mrs. Hayakawa

By that time, as I say, Daisy had come. We had a cleaning woman named Mary Walker. When we were having the second child, we knew we had to have someone all the time. We had a ten-room apartment. This apartment had two rooms for maids and a connecting bathroom. So it made a sitting room and a bed room for a live-in maid. Mary Walker said, "Well, my sister-in-law is working in a northern suburb, and they don't treat her very well. I could get her to come to you." So she brought Daisy, and Daisy accepted the job.

Shearer

And the job was to take care of Mark?

Mrs. Hayakawa

The job was to live with us and be general housekeeper and helper and whatever. Mary continued as a cleaning woman, because it was a big apartment and with two children and with me trying to keep on doing other things, we needed help.

Shearer

And you were, at that point, still continuing with the Co-op News editorship and Poetry?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, I think so; I can't really straighten all that out without looking at the back issues.

The people that Daisy worked for got down on their knees and promised to do better. Daisy was caving in to accepting the new job, and Mary Walker said, "Daisy Roseborough, if you don't take this job, I'll never speak to you again!" For which we've always been grateful to Mary. She's a wonderful person, too. So they both continued to work for us until we came out here and, sadly, left Mary behind. Oh, she did come with us one summer school. We came to Mill Valley. I don't know what year it was, but two years before Don accepted the job at San Francisco State permanently, he taught in summer school.

Hayakawa

What were you--

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

I'm telling about Mary and Daisy and the back-up--

[Hayakawa rises as if to leave]

Shearer

Do not, unless you're feeling ill, do not go away; I am just about to ask you a question. [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

I'm just talking here to fill up all your tape, but I just got onto Mary and Daisy. We rented a house from a professor who was away for the summer. And that was in Mill Valley. And we brought Mary and Daisy along. Both.

Hayakawa

It was ostentatious, I thought. [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

We didn't tell people about it; we were holed up in Mill Valley. They didn't really know we had two--but how could we play favorites between these two sisters-in-law? It turned out to be a wise move, because Daisy saw enough of the place that she was willing to come back later.

##

Mrs. Hayakawa

Mary had been married and divorced, hadn't she?

Hayakawa

I think so.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Out here she met a young man. Shortly after that they were married and he went with her to Chicago. As for Daisy, church has been very important to her. So important in her life that we didn't know if she would leave her church in Chicago. But she found a church here; she's still active in it. So it was all a very happy arrangement.

Sorting Out Parental Roles

Shearer

Backing up just a minute to Chicago, when you had, first, one baby and then two more babies, what kind of a change did it make in your lives as a couple? Don, did you have time to be home and with the children when you were teaching?

Hayakawa

Yes, being a professor. Even a full-time professor is not full time. You have to spend a lot of time at home.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Professors did their work at home rather than at their offices in the college, as far as their own work and writing. He was writing books during that time, weren't you?

Hayakawa

Sure.

Mrs. Hayakawa

What did you write? Language in Action came out in 1941.

Shearer

Also there was another edition in 1949, so that would have been in the year of Mark's birth.

Mrs. Hayakawa

So he was writing the revised edition of Language in Action in addition to writing his columns.

Hayakawa

Right.

Mrs. Hayakawa

All of this at home. We had a very nice study with a big library. Somehow or other we acquired a double desk--great big--with kneeholes. It was a very old thing, and very nice. It was a pleasant workroom. I don't remember if you had any secretarial help at that time.

Shearer

By double desk, do you mean for the two of you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, the two of us.

Hayakawa

We were facing each other. She was over there--

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was a vast, old kneehole desk. Covered with leather. I had found this thing in a second hand store. We didn't even know whether it would go through the doors. [laughter] He had a good working area.

Shearer

How did you manage, Don, when you were working at home and Marge was also working at home, sitting at the desk--facing each other? Who got up to tend the children?

Hayakawa

We both got up.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He shared a lot of the care. As a matter of fact, when Mark was small, we had one of these baby carriers that was called an Australian sling. You could put the baby around on your hip and carry it. He used to walk around, carrying Mark and sit at his desk and Mark sitting here [on his hip] and Mark was very passive. He liked to be held and be involved in activity but he wasn't--

Shearer

He wasn't likely to grab for things?

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was passive and loved to be carried. So Don used to carry him a lot that way.

Hayakawa

Did I?

Mrs. Hayakawa

When you worked, too. You'd sit and type, and there was Mark. [laughter] And Alan would play on the floor. Don was very tolerant of them and their interruptions. He was a very good father, indeed. Very close to the children.

Sibling Relations

Shearer

Was Alan willing to be detached from you, that is, not be held and allow Mark to be held while Alan played on the floor? Was that a source of jealousy?

Hayakawa

I don't recall that being a problem.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was less jealous of Mark from an early age. I think he sensed that Mark was somehow not a competitor. I remember several times he pushed Mark over. Mark, instead of holding himself up, would just go flat and bump his head. It was terrible to see how relaxed Mark was; and Alan, after he did that a couple of times, learned that Mark was different and that he mustn't do that to him. Because he didn't push back; he just fell over. I think he soon learned, although we didn't actually teach him--

Hayakawa

Yes, that's right.

Mrs. Hayakawa

--for a long time. I guess we should have told him earlier. But he didn't feel Mark as competition. Then when Wynne came along, she was Alan's equal in speed of maturing. So he, by that time, had learned gentleness and tolerance. He didn't have a competitor. He wasn't very competitive with Wynne, either. So it was a fine relation.

Shearer

Now Wynne was born in--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Mark was born in '49 and Wynne in '51.

Shearer

So--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Alan was five years old when Wynne was born.

Shearer

I gather that makes a difference, too, in the degree of competition.

---

Semantics and Communication with Children

Shearer

So, having read the article that you and Marge pretty much jointly authored, "On Communication with Children" (Appendix B), it's clear that you were observing your children through several lenses--the experience of your parents and then some of the theories of semanticists and psychologists--Carl Rogers, for one. How did you apply his theories of child raising and communication?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Do you want to tell about the non-directive approach of Carl Rogers at this point? It was very influential.

Hayakawa

That's discussed in this paper you have?

Shearer

There's a wonderful example you give, contrasting the approach that your mother-in-law used with the non-directive approach of Carl Rogers.

Hayakawa

[reading] "My mother-in-law had a hortatory habit. She found it difficult to speak to my children without in some way making a generalization about desired behavior. Not only did it have to be good for the present; it had to be a lesson. She was wonderful, but I could not help noticing this habit of talking to children in an unfailingly instructive way." [laughter] "There was a fear that if you let them do something unmannerly or incorrect once, it would become a lifetime habit." [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

That's a little unfair to her; she had a lot of fun with children, too. She really understood how to talk to children. But that is true, basically, that her feeling was that you can't let--

Hayakawa

Here's something. [reading] "Sometimes, in the spirit of play, I would violate good table manners. I amused the children very much once by taking a great amount of Jell-O and slurping it down in one gulp. The children were enormously impressed with their father for being able to do this." [laughter]

Shearer

I can just see you, inhaling a great mound of Jell-O! [laughter]

Hayakawa

That worried my mother-in-law very much. She kept saying, "But what if the children do this at the St. Francis?" [laughter]

Shearer

Oh, dear. Horror of horrors!

---

Hayakawa

I said, "Well, I'm not likely to do this at the St. Francis Hotel." [laughter] This idea that you always have to be setting an example or laying down rules is a very burdensome way of looking at communicating with children. [laughter]

Wynne Hayakawa Joins the Interview

Hayakawa

Hi Wynne. Good morning. [Wynne Hayakawa enters]

Wynne

Hi, hi.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Hello, you're our sample!

Shearer

We're just talking about child raising. [introductions follow]

Wynne

I don't want to interrupt you; I just wanted to bring you some sculptures to look at.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, great!

Hayakawa

You've got some sculptures out there? Do you need any help?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Can you stay and sit in? We're talking about you.

Shearer

Yes. please do.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I'll help you bring the sculptures in later.

I don't know if you've read Don's article on communication with children. We just recently reread it to refresh our minds. And we had just finished reading the part about slurping down the Jell-O to entertain you. [laughter]

Wynne

My mother died a thousand deaths. [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was your grandmother.

Wynne

No, it was you. You were the one who was upset. You thought we were all going to choke ourselves slurping down Jell-O. [laughter]

##

Shearer

Was the non-directive approach to child raising common among your friends or anyone you observed? Or were you the only one?

---

Hayakawa

There must have been some of our friends who were influenced in a similar way.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I suppose so, but I'm not aware of it.

Hayakawa

I'm not actively aware of it.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think that every good nursery school teacher has some kind of this feeling not to be too directive. I know that the nursery school director--what was her name, anyway--was very compatible with this point of view. But I don't know that she ever read the book. It's just a good technique to listen first and get the sense of what's being said before you respond. You elicit it. I don't recall that there were other people who were interested in this as a theory. Don was doing some writing about it.

Shearer

I'm wondering whether Dr. Rogers' ideas were so popular generally at that time. Or did they figure largely in ETC. and among the group of semanticists with whom you were acquainted?

Hayakawa

Well, the big influence on that kind of communication came not through the semanticists but through Carl Rogers himself, who was professor of psychology at the University of Chicago at that time. Very, very influential.

Shearer

So I guess his book, Counseling and Psychotherapy, which was published in 1942, and then, I guess Client-Centered Therapy in 1951, made quite a splash.

Hayakawa

We were living near the University of Chicago and we knew a few people who were involved with this. We were not right in the middle of Rogers' influence but we were very close to it. It was not a tidal wave of influence.

Shearer

Did you ever have the experience of observing a parent and a child, having reached an impasse where things go very badly? Or where the parent becomes abusive--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Indeed we did. It was happening all the time on the streets in Chicago. I used to be horrified by the way people treated their children in public; I wondered what they did at home. They would scold them and criticize them. Say shut-up. The neighborhood was at a very low level of understanding.

Hayakawa

That was true, wasn't it?

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes. People were awfully bossy to their children. I think things got better later. Half a generation down the line, I think things had improved. People had absorbed some of the ideas. But the idea that you took your children out in public and they had to be made to behave in a certain way was just everywhere. You'd cringe at people in stores--the way they treated their children.

Shearer

Did you find that your approach to the child raising changed over the course of your three children? Obviously you had to make some major adjustments for Mark. But coming back to Wynne, who was on an equal footing with Alan, did you find yourself doing things differently?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't feel that we did because I think there was less sibling rivalry because Mark was retarded. Alan early perceived that Mark wasn't a threat or competition for him. As I said earlier, Alan pushed Mark over once or twice and saw him just fall over. That must have shocked him enough so that he realized that you didn't treat Mark that way. I think he grasped very early that there was a difference.

When Wynne came along, there was enough difference in age. She was able to hold her own intellectually. Alan always respected Wynne. I don't feel that he ever really was a domineering big brother.

My big brother was domineering toward me. But not deliberately. He was bigger than life--more generous, more dominating and more thoughtless than other people. He was basically so lovable and generous you couldn't hold it against him.

More on Sibling Relations

Shearer

How do you recall your brothers, Wynne?

Wynne

Alan would always hold it in check, but he did tease me a lot in a normal kind of way. I think he was always very careful not to go too far. He'd tickle me rather than hit me, you know. [laughter] And we both took care of Mark.

Shearer

Did you ever experience any cruelty from other children because of Mark?

---

Wynne

Oh, a little bit. Nothing physical and nothing repeated that I recall.

Shearer

How did you respond to that?

Wynne

I don't really remember any specific incidents. So I don't know what there would be to do that would have protected him. Probably I would have tried to protect him a little bit, mostly by refusing to deal with it. Because it was always verbal, and Mark would get the main point but he wouldn't get the specifics.

Shearer

So if a child pointed and made fun, Mark would get that and have his feelings hurt?

Wynne

I think Mark would get it on one level. But on another level, he's very independent; he doesn't depend that much on what other people think of him. To a large extent, he runs on his own pilot. Maybe it's because early on he was made fun of. That's just the way he is. So it's not going to bother him too much.

Shearer

Running on one's own pilot seems to be a family trait, from what I've heard. [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

I can remember my mother saying, "Just because other people do it, you don't have to do it." I guess there was that strong strain in my background. My father was an editor who struck out in a new direction and would never be influenced by the pressures on him. I think I absorbed this trait, and I think Don has been that way. He's been independent. No matter what people thought about what he was about to do, he went ahead and did it. People followed along after and accepted it.

Shearer

What about race prejudice? Is that something you noticed, Wynne, or had to deal with to any extent?

Wynne

Just a little bit. About the same amount as prejudice against Mark. Or less.

Shearer

At what point in your life?

Wynne

Oh, second grade, first grade.

Shearer

Were you dealing with other kids? Expectations of teachers?

Wynne

Other kids. I don't know about expectations of teachers. I think they were more aware of my father being a professor and an English professor than of my being Japanese. [laughs]

Hayakawa

Did that scare them?

---

Wynne

There is kind of--I perceived there to be a stereotype of "good Oriental kids" and "good students." So I may have fallen into that to some extent.

Shearer

You mean, you excelled because you were expected to excel?

Wynne

No, I think there may have been that perception.

Shearer

How do you remember it, Marge?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I wasn't aware that Wynne had any such problems at school. She didn't mention anything, any discrimination. She always seemed very secure. Alan seemed less secure in his relations with fellow students and the teachers. Wynne always seemed to be on top of the situation.

Hayakawa

Alan was not entirely secure.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, he seemed less so. He wanted to make--how to say this so it isn't an injustice. He was more concerned with other people's attitudes toward him, I think. He was more responsive to peer pressure and wanted to do what the boys were doing.

Shearer

Does that gibe with your recollection, Don?

Hayakawa

I wasn't that close to the day-to-day behavior.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, his playmates were chosen from people who were athletic and not necessarily very brilliant at school. He was trying to make his way with the gang.

Shearer

He, being bright and able in school?

Mrs. Hayakawa

What he wanted to do was play better baseball. I guess every boy goes through that to a degree.

Wynne

Well, because he wasn't terrible at it, there was some possibility of his being able to play baseball.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, he was good at it and interested in it. A very normal thing.

Wynne

And school is so easy. I mean, public school in Mill Valley is so easy, there's no point in thinking about it. [laughter]

Shearer

After Mark was born, how did your family life change?

Hayakawa

I don't know whether it changed, did it?

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't know that it did because we had to have baby sitters for the other children. We had baby sitters for Mark. We had the wonderful blessing of having Daisy as a built-in baby sitter, who came with us out here. As I told you earlier, she's been with us all these years. She gave up a very close family relationship to come out here. I don't know in what other way we accommodated ourselves to Mark's being retarded, except that he needed care much longer and he still needs it.

Shearer

Seeing and meeting him today, he seems a very independent, gracious, confident person, so I don't have a sense of how he was in his various stages of development.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, he went to nursery school, not a special school, but a nursery school where they took into account what he could and couldn't do.

Shearer

Was that successful?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, that was fine. On the whole, he's been treated that way always and allowed to grow up in his own way. He began to resist formal education. He learned to count. But to read, well, he took a certain amount of it. He knows letters. But after that he would just quit cooperating. He would just sort of close you out when you'd try to teach him more than he was ready for. He has absorbed an amazing amount of things by himself since. Depends on what he's interested in. For example, out of his record collection of several hundred records, he can go and find the record which he heard on the Dick Clark program. I don't know how he does it but he has an amazing ability to do things that interest him.

Shearer

It really is extraordinary. Thinking back to your account of how happily the three children played together as youngsters, it seems to contradict in an extraordinary way the kind of advice that was being given to most parents of retarded children in the early 1950s, which was, that if you have a retarded child at home, all attention will be focused on this child and you will be slighting your other children. Was that told to you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes, literally. "You must put him away." That was the phrase. As if it would harm the family. We said, he's just as much a part of this family as anybody else; this is his family. Who else would care so much about him?

Hayakawa

I've always thought it was crazy to put a retarded child aside, especially in an institution for retarded people or something like that.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Who was it--one of the specialists we saw said, "You must remember that your husband is a professional man." (I don't remember whether he said he was an important author or what.) "You can't keep a child like that."

I just said, "Why not?" This was a professional advisor. We'd been through a lot of evaluations of Mark with other professionals.

Shearer

And he was thinking--

Mrs. Hayakawa

He was thinking of the welfare of the family and of Don's career, that you can't have a retarded child at home if you're a professor and a writer--

Hayakawa

[laughs] and distinguished intellectual.

Mrs. Hayakawa

The world has changed in regard to retarded children, but we were--I guess people did accept this advice, that it would be hard on the family, unfair to the other children, and all kinds of reasons. But we just didn't take that advice. Then it began to change, and people began to make provisions for the retarded and understand the nature of retardation. But it was the Middle Ages when we got into this.

Shearer

Did you have to go against pressure or opinions from friends or associates? Were you aware of criticism for having made this decision?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, except for those dumb doctors. [laughter]

Shearer

But how about your colleagues, for example?

Hayakawa

Oh, no. There was no pressure of any kind.

Mrs. Hayakawa

It's just like the interracial marriage. There were all kinds of dire predictions, you know. The final argument was, consider the children--how impossible their situation will be. A mixture of cultures just had to be a disaster, and my mother felt that an interracial marriage would be terribly unhappy. My father even more so than my mother was just frozen with fear. I had brought this young Japanese professor for Christmas with the family. I don't know what he would have done, how we would have made our peace with him, had he lived. But he died before I was out of school, and that postponed our marriage because I had to get my mother sort of settled and see how she was going to get along. I devoted the next year to her until she was ready to move to her sisters'. So that worked out. But there were

---

people who were so convinced that this was the wrong thing, that they just couldn't accept it. It turned out to be all in their heads.

Of course, Don is so marvelous in conducting himself. I'm a little less outgoing. It's not as easy for me to make friends, but he broke down all barriers just by being himself and reaching out to people unself-consciously.

Hayakawa

Is that what I did?

Mrs. Hayakawa

You know, you couldn't sit on a train and talk to people without breaking down barriers. He was just easy with people. I have never been that easy with people. Maybe he's a little dense. [laughter]

Shearer

Now who else could say that? [laughter] What has been the connection and response of your parents, Don, to the grandchildren? Were they involved and visiting? I know your mother made a visit here while you were in the Senate.

Hayakawa

By that time, they had fully accepted them; it was no problem. But I do remember before we were married, the year I got my Ph.D.--in 1935. I thought it was about time I visited my parents. My mother met me at the airport. One of the first things she asked me was whether she should look for a bride for me. Apparently she had some eligible young ladies lined up, whose families were interested in having their daughters married off to our family. I said, "Don't trouble yourself. Your job is to protect me." [laughter]

Shearer

From these young ladies?

Hayakawa

And so she did. When I told my parents about Marge and her family, they immediately gave their blessing.

Mrs. Hayakawa

His parents were just great. They accepted me so readily, and we all became fond of each other very quickly. Yes. They had figured out that Don would probably marry somebody over here and they weren't holding out for a Japanese. They were much more open-minded.

Shearer

Did they come to visit after the children were born? Did the children get to know them?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, and then we took the children to Japan. All three. No, we left Mark and Wynne and Daisy at my mother's in Hamilton, Ohio.

Hayakawa

Is that what we did? Did we take Wynne?

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

No. I know we took Alan early, Wynne went to Japan after she was out of college. Daisy went to Japan some years later.

Shearer

So Don's parents were supportive? How about when Mark was born? Were they equally supportive?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes. They were very warm and understanding.

Shearer

You sound pleased with the decision you made--to keep Mark at home and--

Hayakawa

There was never any doubt about it.

Shearer

What are your thoughts about the future for him?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, considerable concern. We have focused on giving him financial security through trusts for which Alan and Wynne are trustees. We realize that they will be faced with some difficult decisions. We don't know just how that can be worked out. As long as there are people like Daisy to live with--beyond that I really don't know. It's really a terrible problem, but I see nothing for it except to leave it in good hands with enough money as possible to have them do what they can to make him comfortable. Even if it means living in this Mill Valley house. It's in our wills that this is Mark's house as long as his guardian wants it to be his house. If someone like Daisy can live here with him where he's familiar with this--that might be the best situation.

Shearer

That he be in familiar surroundings?

Mrs. Hayakawa

That there be as few changes as possible and familiar people like Daisy. Of course we may need another caretaker besides Daisy if she gets--so it's impossible to look that far in the future.

Shearer

Does he have friends here in Mill Valley?

Mrs. Hayakawa

His friends are all mature people who understand him. He's never had friends who were his own age except his sister and brother, who were unusually understanding. He needs special friends who are adults, who are thoroughly grown up. He has never cared for his own age group. He went to nursery school but he never made friends there. He never played with people. I guess his own age group is not understanding enough to make allowances for him, and he doesn't understand their problems if they're retarded. He's bored with the retarded. For many years he went to the retarded groups here--

---

Shearer

What groups?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Recreational groups and school for the retarded. Various special education classes. He was beneficiary of the growing number of schools and recreation groups for the retarded. They were just starting when we came here. I was in the society that did a lot of this setting up and financing schools for the retarded. But Mark never really enjoyed them. He'd rather be alone with people who understand him thoroughly, like Daisy and like ourselves, who will let him do what he wants to do and not try to organize him into activities. [laughs] There's a certain logic to his point of view. He doesn't see why he should have to do this. Finally, after years and years of being transported up to these various schools, he just didn't want to do it any more.

Shearer

How about sheltered workshops?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't know what all Mark was in, but he was in various levels. They were wonderful for other children. Some children could make the most of them. [pauses to instruct Wynne on placement of sculptures she is bringing into the house]

##

Shearer

You were saying when he got through the--

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, he went through the sheltered workshop and, to a degree, he liked doing things and liked having something definite to go to, but there was not the possibility of growth and going on from there. Year after year--after all, he is almost forty years old. This is a long time to be in such a program that doesn't change that much.

Shearer

His jobs or activities didn't change?

Mrs. Hayakawa

It wasn't their fault; I don't know what you can do in those situations. What he likes to do, he likes to do. He loves to stack the dishwasher; he's our official dishwasher stacker. There are certain things he takes pride in doing and he does them without being told to do them or asked to do them. But mostly he likes to play phonograph records and listen to them and watch television, particularly musical shows. He knows when they all are. He can time himself; he knows when to turn them on. I don't know how he knows these things.

Shearer

What about live performances of music?

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

He doesn't really like to go anywhere now; I don't know why. I don't think he particularly likes live performances as opposed to TV or records. He sings along with the records and dances. He seems the most self-sufficient person I've ever known, as long as all his needs are met. It's a little sad to see he doesn't seem to even need any of us. But it's really fortunate that he doesn't seem to feel a lack of companionship. Of course, he would miss Daisy very dreadfully, or miss all of us, if we weren't here. But he goes along on his own pilot, as you say. [laughter]

Shearer

Is he a good dancer?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, he's an enthusiastic dancer.

Shearer

Keeps time?

Mrs. Hayakawa

[laughter] After a fashion. On what occasions have we gone in public where we danced? He dances with Don--

Hayakawa

At nightclubs here about a year ago.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He dances with Don and he dances with me. He holds both hands and pumps them up and down more like this. [laughter]

[Hayakawa shows interviewer one of Wynne's sculptures]

Shearer

Oh, this is beautiful.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, she's been doing several along that line.

Shearer

I have just a few more questions, one or two of which I want to direct to you, Don.

What do you think the biggest challenge of child raising was for you?

[Hayakawa's secretary, Jeanne Griffiths, enters with gift package and note from an admirer]

Actually I'd like to pose the question in two parts. What do you think is the biggest challenge and the biggest joy of child raising?

Hayakawa

The biggest joy, I would say, comes from feeling that your child when he grows up has achieved a meaningful life professionally and in terms of his family life. Now Alan is a very professional writer and newspaperman. This time is kind of exciting for him because he seems to feel that he has reached

---

the limit of his interest and accomplishments within the newspaper business. He's aching to get out of that to something bigger in a literary way.

Shearer

Does he know yet, or do you have a sense of what that might be?

Hayakawa

He doesn't know yet.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Except he did have an offer from a publisher which is almost concluded.

Shearer

To do--?

Mrs. Hayakawa

To do a book.

Shearer

Would this be fiction?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, it would be a book on how to write, as a result of his working on a revision of his father's book and doing a fine job for Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich. And he did it, meeting all the deadlines. Being a newspaperman, he met the deadlines and everything was competently done and in good form. They asked him if he would consider writing a book on writing. They've always had a handbook on how to write, and they wanted a new version of it. He would have a chance to write it from the beginning. He was overjoyed.

We shouldn't mention this as a sure thing because they haven't come to an agreement on a contract and all the details. But it's a wonderful thing to have happened to him. It's given him great confidence. If he can make a connection like this with a publisher and write on his own, I think he will be much happier.

Hayakawa

If he does a good job on this, it will be a huge moneymaker. It's a kind of a book on the technicalities of how to write well and so on. Every damned freshman in the country will have to buy it.

Shearer

It must be a great pleasure to you to feel that he's carrying on what you began.

Hayakawa

And if the students enjoy using his book, they won't sell it at the end of the semester or the end of the year; they'll hang on to it. The next generation of students will have to buy a new copy.

Shearer

I see. There's a wily author. [laughter]

---

Can you think of what was most difficult, most challenging to you as a father?

[Mrs. H. exits to discuss sculpture placement with Wynne]

Hayakawa

Well-- [long pause]

Shearer

At one point, you wrote about how boys grow into men and you were commenting on how difficult it was in these times for boys to be in the company of men and receive male culture and receive challenges that work often provides. Challenges to survive.

Hayakawa

I was thinking at the time that the experience of being a man among men is more and more difficult to arrive at unless you join the army or police department or become a professional ballplayer.

Shearer

How did you address that concern in raising your boys?

Hayakawa

I didn't. Alan played Little League baseball. But they never went to, for example, military service. You see, I had the advantage, when I was about seventeen or eighteen, of joining the First Cavalry Squadron of the Canadian Machine Gun Corps. Basically, it meant serving with other young men in an eight-week summer camp. It was a very, very important part of my life.

Shearer

Do you think there is a corresponding need for girls to become bonded in the company of women?

Hayakawa

In a major hen party? [laughter] I imagine so. Yes, I think so.

Shearer

Do you have any thoughts on how that might be accomplished?

Hayakawa

Most women are very much concerned with getting along with men. So the only analogous situation to being in the army for men or being members of the police department would be a whole corps of nurses in a hospital or something like that. Even then, they are subject to instruction and command from male doctors.

Shearer

What about bifurcating education, so that young men go to schools for young men and young women go to schools for young women? That certainly used to be the case more often.

Hayakawa

It still exists in men's colleges like Princeton and women's colleges like Vassar and Smith.

---

Shearer

Although I think there has been some overlap, with both of the schools allowing coeducation.

Would that be an appropriate way of dealing with this lack of opportunities for female bonding and male bonding that our culture should provide?

Hayakawa

I've never thought this out. I'm not sure that I'm in favor of all this male bonding, particularly with nations on the verge of going to war.

Shearer

Is there anything that you would advise a parent to be sure to do or not to do in raising a child?

Hayakawa

Both men and women should have some kind of opportunity to be with their own sex and make a place for themselves in that group--young women with other women and young men with young men. Athletics provides that for young men most of the time. I don't know whether the experience that women have is quite comparable.

Shearer

There are more women's sport teams being encouraged on the college level and earlier.

Hayakawa

That's good.

Shearer

If you had to raise your family all over again, is there anything you would do differently?

Hayakawa

Not substantially. Our children have always had both a father and a mother. That's kind of fundamental, a very desirable state of affairs. So I'm not sure that there was any lack of either sex being available to our children. There are some respects in which a boy has to experience a man's world, in the same way a girl has to experience a woman's world, without any men around. It's part of the maturation process of both sexes. I think that our society offers opportunities for both men and women to realize themselves in regard to the other sex or in regard to their own sex. Boys can join ball teams or girls join women's clubs or athletic teams or whatever. But there are very few athletic events in which boys and girls serve on the same team. But that kind of bonding activity is part of maturation.

Shearer

[to Mrs. H., reentering the interview] We were just talking about the perceived need for male bonding activities and I asked about what might be the corresponding female bonding activities that would launch a young woman into full participation in society. Do you have a sense of--

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I would say that it's much more difficult to prescribe something for women because the old-fashioned, small circle of female activities of my mother's and grandmother's generations doesn't exist. I don't know what would take its place, as far as purely feminine activities. If you're lucky, you have good role models in aunts and cousins and sisters to watch. I really haven't any theories on how that could be provided, because girls' basketball teams and such things are not the equivalent of the males'. I really haven't put much thought on it. I think women just have to make their own patterns anew in this generation.

I don't think Wynne had any problems. But I don't know how she did it. There was nothing provided in the culture.

Shearer

What about her mother?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I was rather impatient with women's groups that got together simply because they were women. They had to have a better reason--a common thread. I never went in that direction; I didn't want to join a sorority. I went through the rushing period to see what it was like and it was just about what I thought it would be like. Very painful, uncongenial process. So I was lucky enough to find a women's rooming house that was also a literary club for men and women. That's where I met Don, and that proved to be a good way to go. He had great tolerance for women, fortunately. [laughter] He always had a real feeling for women and their abilities and their life problems. He was unique in the culture as I found it at the University of Wisconsin.

Shearer

Looking back over your years of raising children, what was your biggest challenge?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, I think perhaps in the terms of which we were speaking today, when to be directive and when to be nondirective. Because you haven't, as a parent, been along this way before and you're scared of going too far in either extreme and because you can see examples around you of people who were too directive and who caused rebellion. People who were nondirective and didn't transmit their values successfully. On the whole, I think if you don't worry too much about transmitting your values, they get transmitted if they're worthwhile. So I don't know if it was the biggest challenge or not. In a way, it wasn't, because it did seem to work its way out.

It gets harder when they get to be teenagers and they have a new culture and a new set of values and a new world. You know what the checks and balances were when you were a teenager, but

---

they don't work anymore and you're helpless. Probably the worst challenge is to know when you've done enough and if they're equipped with their own automatic pilot. You just have to watch and see.

Shearer

What advice would you give to parents?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think the principle of watching the child and seeing his or her response to various ways the parent treats the child is most important. Watch and observe. Some children need a different kind of guidance than others. Others are very quick to absorb very much. Although I can't make any general rule, the Carl Rogers approach of not being too directive, but watching and responding, is a good way to go. I don't know anybody who's really talking about this today, but now that I'm reminded of it, I think it's really worth reviewing. It gives the maximum of freedom to the individual and, perhaps, the maximum of bonding with the parent's ideas, if you don't force them on the children. Every child will revolt at some point.

Shearer

Is there anything that you would do differently, if you had a chance?

Mrs. Hayakawa

That means I'd be asking my children to be different, and I'm not dissatisfied with them.

I think Alan had trouble finding himself and went too early into a marriage that he should have considered more carefully. His first marriage was unhappy. I don't know how we could have given him a different approach to that. Do you, Don? I have not seen the point at which we failed to equip him with the protective mechanism that one needs. If I had known how to do it, I would certainly advocate doing it. I would wish to have children aware of what traps their own personalities and their own desires for freedom and their own reaching out beyond their parents can lead them into trouble, if they're not fully aware of the way they might be misreading other people. I realize that's pretty abstract but I don't want to discuss what the details are for the record. [laughter]

Shearer

In the 1980s and 1970s--and maybe always--there has been an issue of how much time is appropriate for mothers to spend with their children. At the time you were raising your children, you were engaged in--well I guess you had resigned the Co-op News but you were still working on Poetry magazine. How was the issue drawn for you, or how did you draw it for yourself?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, when we decided to have children, I accepted that they would have priority, but I always hoped I would continue to be

---

able to do other things as well. Poetry was a little job that I could do. I had always hoped to write but I didn't have the self-discipline to do it. Don wrote Language in Action as a text for his classes. But I didn't have anything that made me do that, unfortunately. [Mark passes through; greetings are exchanged]

What was your question?

Shearer

How did you balance time with children and time for your own pursuits?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Fortunately, I had Daisy, which made a world of difference. I always realized that I was blessed by having help. And Don was helpful as a parent, too. He was a very good father and did a lot of things--watching and taking the children on expeditions and all sorts of things. But there is no easy answer to that problem. It helps to have a little extra money to have a maid--a solution that doesn't work for the majority of people. I realize that I was very lucky. Today there are a lot of women who are succeeding at both, and I don't know if they are going to wear themselves out or if their children or marriage or job will suffer. We haven't seen enough of this yet. I admire them for being able to do it, but I think of how tired they must be.

Shearer

Maybe that's the note on which we should end today's session. You've been answering questions a long time. Thank you very much.

[tape turned off and on]

Here's a footnote on giving checks and balances to children.

Mrs. Hayakawa

It's much harder today than it was for our parents. Without some kind of checks and balances you're without a guide or rudder in today's world, where almost anything is acceptable or permitted in the way of behavior. People do not have the restraints on actions that will lead them down a certain path. They don't know how to look before they leap. It seems that we were raising our children in an easier time than they will be raising their children.

---

XI The San Francisco State Years, 1968-1973

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##

Moving from Chicago

Shearer

What was the incentive to come out here to San Francisco State? I thought you were fairly firmly established at the Illinois Institute of Technology.

Hayakawa

No, I wasn't very happy with the place, so I just did a lot of lecturing in a night class for the University of Chicago before moving. By that time, I had pretty well stopped working for Illinois Tech.

Shearer

Did the University of Chicago appeal to you as a place to teach?

Hayakawa

Well, not particularly, because I only taught in the night school. There, you don't get full-time pay or tenure or rank or anything.

Shearer

That seems surprising to me. I wonder why they did not offer you a full-time teaching position?

Hayakawa

I've often wondered that, too. [laughter] Here I was, this great genius, and--

Mrs. Hayakawa

They had a much more conventional English department, didn't they, in the hands of the old-style scholars who were not interested in exploring into the "lunatic fringe" of semantics. I suppose that was, in a way, how they felt.

Shearer

I gather Korzybski had his institute not far from the University of Chicago.

Hayakawa

There was no relationship between the two.

---

Shearer

Yes, and I guess they would have considered him much further out on the fringe.

Hayakawa

Yes, if they had heard of him at all.

Shearer

But you were certainly associated with Korzybski in the minds of many people, popularizing his ideas. Do you think, at the University of Chicago, that worked against your career interests, possibly?

Hayakawa

I never worried about it, because everybody I knew at the University of Chicago, especially in the English department, was so wrapped up philosophically with Aristotle and the Aristotelian orientation. The English department philosophy was the very opposite of mine, so I never had any interest in the English department of the University of Chicago.

Shearer

So you were not leaving a juicy career plum behind in Chicago at that point?

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

What about your sense of the inhospitality of California, this being just eight years after the war and the internment of Japanese Americans. Did this concern you particularly?

Hayakawa

Well, it didn't concern me an awful lot, although I worried whether they would accept a Japanese in the English department and how the public would react. But the important fact, as I look back on it, is that the United States had already defeated Japan in the Second World War. We weren't worried about the Japanese any more. [laughs]

There was nothing but cordial treatment once I got here at San Francisco State.

Friends and Colleagues at San Francisco State

Shearer

Who was your contact? You said it was the chairman of the English department who--?

Hayakawa

Her name was Caroline Shrodes.

Shearer

She was chair of the--

Hayakawa

The English department.

---

Shearer

How had she known of your work?

Hayakawa

Well, in the first place, I had been invited out here for three summer sessions before I came here--'52, '53, and '54. Or maybe in '53, '54, and '55. I actually don't remember.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think we moved to this house in '55. So that was after we lived in--was it Caroline Shrodes's? No, it wasn't Caroline Shrodes's house that we lived in.

Hayakawa

Lou Wasserman's house.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Wasserman's house, yes. Lou and Caroline Wasserman. Awfully nice people.

Shearer

They're not related to the John Wasserman of the Chronicle?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think that's their son. We didn't meet the family, because they had moved out of the house. We met them later, and Don was a colleague of Lou Wasserman's later when he joined the staff of San Francisco State. But we were there for summer school, living in their Mill Valley house, which was nice because nobody knew about Mill Valley. We would be glad of it later. [laughter]

Shearer

What kind of a department did you find when you arrived at San Francisco State.

Hayakawa

Very cordial, very hospitable.

Shearer

I noticed that sometimes you're described as being a professor of language arts and sometimes as professor of English. Why?

Hayakawa

Language arts is a kind of School of Education term and looked down upon by the English department people. But San Francisco State was not organized originally to turn out literary scholars but to turn out English teachers for public schools. So that's why it was called the language arts department.

Shearer

Were you the only semanticist?

Hayakawa

Yes, I think. However, many of my colleagues became interested in semantics and helped me edit my journal ETC. and used some of the principles of semantics in their teaching. Caroline Shrodes was chairman of the department and gave me every encouragement.

Shearer

Who in particular was cordial or of like mind or of a stimulating mind in the department or in the school at large?

---

Hayakawa

Oh, Caroline Shrodes to start out with. Who are special friends at San Francisco State? Richard Dettering.

Character of the Campus

Shearer

Did you do any team teaching or anything in any organized fashion to spread semantics?

Hayakawa

In the early years when I was at San Francisco State, I gave a big, big lecture course--about two hundred students at a time. Five or six instructors, assistant professors, would conduct small discussion sessions of thirty or so, and I would give the big lecture.

Shearer

What was the large lecture course you're speaking of?

Hayakawa

Well, it was the general semantics course.

Shearer

So you must have had some teaching and coaching of the section leaders, to acquaint them with the--

Hayakawa

No, they came to the lectures, and then they would go from there.

Shearer

Were there any other Asian or minority faculty members at that time?

Hayakawa

No. There must have been in other departments. I didn't know about any in particular.

Shearer

What was the focus of faculty life? On the Berkeley campus there's the Faculty Club, and people actually do come daily to meet.

Hayakawa

We didn't have anything resembling the Faculty Club at that time. We came from different parts of the world. [chuckles] I came in from Mill Valley, and somebody else came from Sausalito. Others came from the Peninsula, and some people lived right there in San Francisco.

Mrs. Hayakawa

The same was true for the students. Wasn't it much more a streetcar college?

Hayakawa

Yes.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't think they even had a dormitory when you first came, did they? They built some later.

Hayakawa

I don't know if they did or not. They did build some later, yes.

Shearer

How did the student body compare or contrast with the young people you had been teaching at Illinois Institute?

Hayakawa

Illinois Tech was a very special kind of thing. It was essentially an engineering college. It was almost entirely men, although after we combined with Lewis Institute, we got some girls in.

Shearer

I think you mentioned that it was heavily ethnic in the sense of Poles and Slavs and Bohemians at that time, and that most of the students were first-generation college in their families.

Hayakawa

That's right, very much so.

Shearer

How did this compare and contrast to the students you were teaching at San Francisco State?

Hayakawa

[laughs] They were the same kind.

Shearer

Were they?

Hayakawa

Yes. If your parents were already college graduates, you didn't come to Illinois Tech, and you didn't come to San Francisco State, either. I would say, perhaps ninety-five out of a hundred students at either San Francisco State or Illinois Tech had parents who never got as far as college.

Shearer

How did this compare or contrast to the students that you had in your classes at University of Chicago? Now, I'm mindful of the fact that you were teaching night school, so that may have been different.

Hayakawa

That's very different from the regular students, daytime students, at the University of Chicago.

Shearer

How about difference in socioeconomic status between San Francisco State and Illinois Tech? What about--were students brighter?

Hayakawa

No, there really weren't many profound differences.

Shearer

Did you know that before you came? Did you sense that, knowing what you did of the college?

---

Hayakawa

Well, I knew that San Francisco State was not a socially desirable place. If you had your social ambitions at all, you went to Vassar or Princeton or some Ivy League school.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I should add that I think Don has always shown an ability to stimulate students who have never been stimulated before, by his approach and his personality. He didn't classify students in this University of Chicago classification or Berkeley classification. He assumed they were all potentially eager young learners and would respond to new points of view. They did in large part. He was a very good teacher.

Teaching Approach

Shearer

Can you describe your approach? What is it that worked with these students, for example, that was not operating so far as you could tell in the classes of other professors at the college?

Hayakawa

Well, you're putting me in a tough position, because you're almost compelling me to say I had enthusiasm in my teaching.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I have another angle on it. I think that it's in part because the subject matter he dealt with concerned problems of experience in seeing and living. He wasn't coaching them in how to respond, but they were applying this to their own personal lives and reactions. It therefore meant a lot, in one way or another--the principles of semantics, of analyzing communication. Don, don't you think that was involved? You really opened eyes for young students as, for some, a philosophy course does, but without going through a whole group of philosophers, comparing approaches. You offered one person's approach that was quite new to most students. It really stimulated them tremendously.

Shearer

That reminds me, Don, of your description of the way you approached teaching at Illinois and at Wisconsin Extension, which was to encourage the students to write about what was familiar to them--their own hometown, their own experiences. In so doing, it seems to me that you dignified their life experience as material for use in the classroom. You also mentioned Wendell Johnson's notion, which is, that "you can't write writing;" you have to write about something.

Hayakawa

You can't write writing. [laughter] That was a famous motto.

---

Shearer

I remember what a relief it was when my professor spoke plainly in a way that allowed me to participate in the educational process. That inclusiveness was so welcome and seemed to allow the "teaching moment" to bloom.

Mrs. Hayakawa

That fits in very well with the influence of Carl Rogers and the nondirective approach. You don't tell people things; you communicate back and forth and draw information out of them by being interested. Then they can take it from there. That was an influence, too, that was, I think, important.

Shearer

I'm going to pause here a moment.

[tape interruption]

Shearer

This is an article by Joseph Cohen, who was a member of your class that was structured in such an interesting fashion [CTA Journal. 1964, p. 27]. Do you want to describe how and why you ran the class in the way you did?

Hayakawa

Well, there were a lot of different things. I remember breaking up a class into groups of six. We were in a class that lasted more than three hours or so, and they would take the first hour, sitting in groups of six and discussing what was next on the agenda. Of course, then they would break up--I've forgotten now.

Shearer

In Joseph Cohen's article, he described how you challenged the class to grade themselves. That was a very disturbing prospect for them [laughter], and they had a lot of discussion about whether this should happen. They were very reluctant to do this. I gather that you had an additional agendum, which was to encourage the students to communicate openly and clearly with each other and kind of organize themselves around an issue, even if they just couldn't resolve it. Cohen found this so illuminating--and so shrewd.

Hayakawa

This seemed to be a good illustration of Carl Rogers's ideas, of drawing the student out to make his own discoveries.

[narrator and interviewer take a break, and Hayahawa displays photos of antelope sculptures and remarks about his collection]

Shearer

I just want to read this grading example. This is Cohen speaking: "To solve the grading problem, he [Hayakawa] proposed that everybody get a B to start with, and, at the end of the term, anyone who felt he deserved an A could ask for it. The professor would reserve the right to give an A when the student

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appeared to be too self-effacing to request it. Surprisingly, the class did not immediately accept the idea. Grades, we decided, were sacred cows, and Hayakawa sent us into small discussion groups to settle the question of grading. We agreed to adopt the professor's plan, and it was adopted, but the dissenters continued to suspect that unethical students would take advantage."

This is a class that went on for some months. I guess it was at least a full semester. It consisted of older students, lawyers, psychiatrists, two professors, as well as quite a few schoolteachers and graduate students--so this would have been an upper division course or seminar?

Hayakawa

It must have been, yes.

Shearer

I gather you were teaching both upper and lower division courses?

Hayakawa

Particularly, if that was an evening class. I think it was.

Shearer

I think so, yes.

Hayakawa

Anyway, you always had, in evening classes, ordinary undergraduates and adults from the general community and a few people who had professional credentials of one kind or another. They were all mixed together.

Shearer

I see. And was it common for professors in the department to teach evening classes as well as daytime classes? Did everybody do that?

Hayakawa

Lots of us did. I liked the variety of adult students in their fifties and sixties that would join a class like that.

Shearer

Why is that?

Hayakawa

Why what?

Shearer

Why do you prefer or particularly enjoy this kind of student?

Hayakawa

Well, because of the wider variety of people interacting with each other. There would be nineteen-year-olds and people who were fifty years or sixty, comparing different views and their life experiences.

##

Hayakawa

Starting in Chicago, I did a lot of night school teaching. It was very rewarding. I had a mixed group of people who were undergraduate age and then other people who were already in the business world, even retired people, which represented an age range from eighteen to sixty in the group. I can remember an older student horning in on a discussion by saying, "Well, I worked for a railroad for forty years of my life, and I can tell you you're all wet." [laughter]

Shearer

So class discussions were lively.

Did you find that the younger students also participated more, were kind of drawn into this?

Hayakawa

Yes. Well, of course, that's part of the instructor's skill to see to it that they would get drawn in.

Shearer

Did you use Language in Thought and Action in the classroom?

Hayakawa

Very often.

Shearer

Were you also continuing to give your students exercises in identifying the slant in news and exercising critical judgment in reading speeches of government officials and politicians and advertisers?

Hayakawa

I'm not sure of any of that explicitly.

Shearer

Would this have been embedded in your general approach in semantics?

Hayakawa

I suppose.

---

Dr. Hayakawa's Many Faces

By Joseph Cohen

Mr. Cohen, free-lance writer and husband of a San Francisco teacher, was a member of Dr. Hayakawa's evening seminar group. His "eye witness report" appropriately follows a controversial review in the October CTA JOURNAL written by the noted semanticist.

DR. S. I. HAYAKAWA once covered the window of his office door at San Francisco State College with a sinister-looking magazine picture of himself. On a slip of paper below he typed the caption, "The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu." A passing student read the inscription and assumed that some wiseacre had put it there. He tore it off, took it into the office, and wailed in a tone of outrage, "Look what somebody did!"

I cite this ancedote to indicate that Hayakawa is not a subscriber to the solemn aura that surrounds his name and works. He is willing to include himself in the witty, erudite examination he directs upon virtually all of life's institutions. Contrary to popular impression, he does not use Communication or General Semantics as a measuring device for all existence. LIFE magazine recently stirred up that notion by characterizing him as a "wizard of words," as though he were a sort of super-intellectual mynah bird.

I do not propose here a eulogy to the noted teacher, but I should like to describe his relationship to a unique group that participated in a year-long graduate seminar in "Problems of Communication" at San Francisco State in 1962-63. I look back with a certain awe, for in many ways it was an extraordinary experience, one difficult to describe. Hayakawa submitted us to an "unstructured" situation; we found ourselves lowering our defenses, exposing our inner voices, and moving into the process of "becoming."

Of the people who participated, only half could be called students in the usual sense. The class included a lawyer, a psychiatrist, two professors, a business executive, a colonel, a nurse, a fireman, an ex-convict, and a number of school teachers. Mixed in were a number of graduate students seeking master's degrees. At the beginning we had little in common, but by the end of the year we had developed a peculiar cohesion which induced us to continue our weekly meetings on a private basis outside of the college.

At the first evening meeting we sat uneasily, trying to appear intellectual and perhaps a bit wry, waiting for the professor. I was jittery, fully expecting Hayakawa to size me up with one glance as a semantically disoriented individual. A woman next

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to me said, "Well, where is the illustrious professor?" —and at that moment he appeared.

We stared at him silently. A psychiatrist sitting in the front row turned around, giving the class a squint-eyed, analytic examination. Hayakawa smiled warmly, said hello, and asked us to form a circle with our chairs.

Hayakawa said he was not going to lecture and that he wanted to give everybody a good grade. This stimulated a flurry of murmuring and huzzahs. When the noise quieted, he explained that the traditional method of the professor lecturing while students listened was virtually worthless because students would thus be limited to one point of view, they tended to parrot what the professor had said, and lectures are usually dull anyway. He felt that grades tended to struggle learning by giving the process a false, symbolic value. He did not propound all this as dogmatic truth; he ventured it tentatively, offering alternatives for the class to choose.

To solve the grading problem, he proposed that everybody get a B to start with and at the end of the term anyone who felt he deserved an A could ask for it. The professor would reserve the right to give an A when the student appeared to be too selfeffacing to request it. Surprisingly, the class did not immediately accept the idea. Grades, we decided, were sacred cows. But our protests reflected our years of indoctrination in competitive learning, and unveiled our underlying values. Several students insisted that some members of the class might take advantage of the plan, asking for grades they didn't deserve. One man pointed out with validity that the graduated system fairly represented our competitive society and that ignoring it would "set us back a bit."

Hayakawa sent us into small discussion groups to settle the question of grading. We agreed to accept the professor's plan and it was adopted. But the dissenters continued to suspect that unethical students would take advantage.

Our class procedure, though unstructured by normal standards, had a structure all its own, with variations. We divided the two and a half hour period into three parts. The first hour and a half about 25 of us formed a wide circle to discuss questions as a group. Then we broke into assigned groups of five or six persons in each to rehash. The last half hour we reassembled in an effort to tie together the threads of our thinking.

Hayakawa's purposes for us were two-fold. In articulate discourse (which never dropped to jargon) we exchanged ideas and didactic information, with general semantics as a kind of reference point. And on a phenomenal, existential level, we learned nonverbally, encountering each other and ourselves in the intricate give-and-take of group dynamics. As time went on, it became apparent that verbal and non-verbal learning are inextricably bound together and that concentrating on one or the other tends to weaken communication.

If our unstructured conduct appears to be group therapy, there is good reason. Part of the motif of the seminar derives from the ideas of Hayakawa's friend, Carl Rogers, the advocate of client-centered therapy. We sought to develop significant changes in our behavior (for the better, hopefully) as well as to increase our fund of knowledge. Rogers' book "On Becoming A Person" was one of the assigned texts of the course; the author's influence affected our thought and action.

Our discussions resembled television's "Open End," except that we never knew from night to night what we were going to talk about. We rarely discussed the content of our texts or outside reading and the professor had to assume that we were doing any reading at all. In this non-restrictive climate, any subject that was not downright foolish would serve and this led to some bizarre and stimulating—as well as dull—exchanges. In the course of the year we parried views on death, segregation, existentialism, Cuba, advertising, crime, sex, aesthetics, and our daily lives. No matter what the subject, our personal lives became interwoven, our environments revealed themselves. Through these discussions, Hayakawa acted, according to scheme, not as a teacher, but as a member of the group. But from time to time, when his sense of logic was violated, he methodically clarified irrational or non-sequitur reasoning.

As the weeks went by, discussions became increasingly satisfactory, not solely because of what we said, but more importantly because of the way we felt about being there. Attendance, most of us felt, was a special privilege. On a group level, the feeling was analogous to the satisfaction derived when two people achieve a genuine rapport and acceptance of each other. The analogy may be a little over-stated, for our mutual acceptance did not bloom completely.

It is obviously impossible, in relatively short weekly sessions, to develop a complete openness, but this was the class goal, at least in my opinion. Wanting to get through, to pierce the armor of our minds, gave our meetings the atmosphere of serious undertaking.

---

Commenting on Student Political Activities

Shearer

You were teaching both upper division and lower division courses all the time you were at San Francisco State. How did you notice the student body changing, or did you notice it changing, over the years '55 to, let's say, 1964, the year of the Mississippi Freedom Summer and the voting registration project?

Hayakawa

I don't know if that had any particular influence on my classes. I think if they were marching off to Mississippi, they wouldn't be in class.

---

Shearer

When did you become aware of the Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Students' Union becoming very active on campus?

Hayakawa

They were just movements that went around on campus. I don't know any of the particular students who were members of the Black Students' Union or the SDS [Students for a Democratic Society]--I don't know that any of them were in my class. They could have been, of course, but I don't recall that they were or that they presented a point of view that was peculiar to their organizations.

Shearer

Were you aware of their role on campus generally over time?

Hayakawa

I was aware of their existence.

Shearer

When did you become involved in offering solutions or advice to the administration when the protests accelerated in 1964? I guess this was the year of the Free Speech Movement at UC Berkeley, and the protests at San Francisco State accelerated. There were requests or demands for ethnic studies and--

Hayakawa

It seems to me that all that business didn't affect me very much. My courses in general semantics were, in many cases, evening courses, and the people who came to them would include some undergraduates and some adults in the community at large. So that was always a mature class behaving in a mature way, and it wasn't involved in any campus uproar.

Shearer

I see. So in the early sixties, you were teaching, perhaps, more night classes than day classes?

Hayakawa

[to Mrs. H.] Was I working half-time at the--?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, it's possible. I just don't remember. I don't know if you were writing, editing, and wanted half-time. Half-time was nicer for the family.

Shearer

Well, you were writing Language, Meaning and Maturity in 1954 and also editing ETC., which you brought with you to San Francisco State. [checks notes] In 1959, Our Language and Our World, and, in 1962, The Use and Misuse of Language. So you were doing quite a bit of writing. In '63, you wrote Symbol, Status, and Personality, and that was translated into Swedish, German, Japanese, and English. [chuckles] I guess I'm assuming you didn't oversee the translation in all of them, but perhaps you did. I gather that this occupied a fair amount of your time.

---

Hayakawa

[murmurs assent]

Shearer

When did you start writing letters to the administration? This would be as a member of the group called Faculty Renaissance, in which you and several other likeminded faculty felt that the radical or the militant students were going much too far, undertook to discuss these problems and offer some possible solutions to the administration--

Hayakawa

I've forgotten all about Faculty Renaissance. I don't think I even have a file on it.

Shearer

Well, apparently a letter or a series of these letters found their way to Glenn Dumke, who was then chancellor of the whole state college system. As the events became more dramatic--I've just been reading the description--

Hayakawa

What year are we talking about?

Shearer

We're talking about '67, '68, and the year of the strike.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I can't say who was in the Faculty Renaissance with you, but I know you did meet and make some kind of manifesto against the caving in of the administration.

Shearer

At that time--well, John Summerskill was--

Hayakawa

What are you looking at? What are you reading?

Shearer

[showing research notes] I'm just looking at a page here, but I'm going to go back and try to recreate this a little bit. John Summerskill came in 1966 and left in 1968. He was the one who some felt was outmaneuvered by the militant students and others. He thought he could handle their demands with reasonable discussion and good humor, but, in the spring of '68, the Black Students' Union staged an enormous demonstration and invaded the administrative building. Summerskill signed a paper conceding to their demands, and then he left.

Hayakawa

Yes. He didn't tell anyone he was leaving. He called us from New York and he said, "I'm in New York." [chuckles]

Shearer

That was the first that the faculty knew he had left?

Hayakawa

Yes. He telephoned from New York to say he wasn't coming back; he was on his way to Ethiopia. The conditions there were better than they were at San Francisco State. [laughs] They didn't have any Black Students' Union there.

---

Shearer

And he was replaced by Dr. Robert Smith in May. He was an education professor at San Francisco State and, I gather, a pretty popular man? Did you know him?

Hayakawa

I knew him slightly.

Shearer

What was your view of him?

Hayakawa

I thought that he was probably quite a brave man but not a very intelligent man. He was made president, wasn't he?

Shearer

He was made president. He was appointed to take over from Summerskill, and it was the year of the Tet offensive and Martin Luther King's assassination and the San Francisco State student strike. It all came in that brief time.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Wasn't he the one--you had described to me that he was unable to figure out a course of action because he resented so being dictated to by the trustees when the trustees tried to tell him what he should do. He resigned rather than be dictated to by the trustees.

Hayakawa

Yes, and he was the kind of guy who got his back up whenever he felt someone was giving him orders.

Mrs. Hayakawa

He seemed a rather mild man otherwise, didn't he? I wonder how he would have ridden it out if he had had a chance.

Assuming the Presidency of San Francisco State

Shearer

The strike began November sixth in 1968, and he was president at that time. The trustees were very upset that he had "allowed" this to happen, or that he hadn't cracked down sooner, or didn't crack down then. Apparently, he is reported to have felt that he could proceed with reasoned discourse, but the trustees insisted that he do something. One source says that they fired him, and another source says that he resigned. But the upshot was the same. He resigned on Thanksgiving weekend.

At that point, I gather, Mr. Dumke had in hand some of the letters that you had written. Although he did not know you, he felt that what you had to offer was valuable, so he floated the idea of appointing you president. I have heard that Governor Reagan said, "Well, who the hell is this Hayakawa? Who is he?" Dumke explained some of your ideas, and Reagan said, "Well, if

---

he will take the job, we will forgive him Pearl Harbor." [laughter] With that story, real or apocryphal--

Hayakawa

I've heard it before.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, I've heard it, too. I believe it was real. It sounds like Reagan. He was free enough from prejudice to be able to make a statement like that, just as Don could have made it himself.

Shearer

How and when did you find out that you were under consideration and that they wanted you to take the position?

Hayakawa

I don't remember.

Shearer

This all took place the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I used to have a very vivid memory. [laughs] That day the world changed considerably. I remember my first reaction. Don, whether he received a phone call--I think he received a phone call from Dumke. Afterwards, he said to me, "Guess what?" [laughter] And I said, "Good God, no!" [laughs]

Shearer

Before you even--?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, he tole me--he said, "They want me to be president of San Francisco State," and I said, "Good God, no!" That's about all I remember of that day. [to Hayakawa] And I suppose you went into conference then with the troops at the university, but I don't know how you got the staff organized and how you met with whom or what. The police, I know, were already involved on campus, and immediately you got in touch with them.

Shearer

Backing up a little bit, though, to before you actually took over. Do you remember the phone call from Dumke or whoever it was that convinced you to take the job?

Hayakawa

No, I don't remember the phone call specifically, but I do remember that I was damn glad to be appointed president.

Shearer

Why?

Hayakawa

Well, I really felt very strongly that someone ought to take charge. I didn't say to myself it could be me. I didn't say that particularly. But I did make some public statements at that time which came to the attention of the trustees.

Shearer

So you didn't hesitate to accept the position?

Hayakawa

No, I didn't. I didn't.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Right there on the telephone. [laughs]

Shearer

"Yes, I will," is that what you said?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I'm sure it was. [to Hayakawa] You didn't wait and call him back or say, "I'll think about it," or--

Hayakawa

"Let me talk to my wife." [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

I remember that as quite a day, a unique day. From then on, he was extremely busy.

Shearer

There were three people that I know of who worked with you. One was Harvey Yorke, who was your press aide. Glenn P. Smith--

Hayakawa

Glenn Smith, yes. He was the treasurer.

Shearer

And Donald L. Garrity. I guess they were both vice presidents, is that right, for--

Hayakawa

Donald Garrity was vice president back then of academic affairs, and Glenn Smith was business manager or vice president of business affairs, whatever the title was. They were very, very fine people.

Shearer

Were they sort of at your side from the beginning?

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

So they were in those positions already; you didn't select them.

Hayakawa

That's right. They backed me up, and I backed them up. We became good buddies.

Shearer

I'd like to just give a little account here. This is from the Los Angeles Times, Monday, October 30, 1972. It's a composite account of those days, and one section says, "On November 26, 1968, Smith resigned in frustration. His resignation caught the trustees unprepared."

Hayakawa

Which Smith is that?

Shearer

This is Robert R. Smith, the education professor who had been serving as president and had failed to halt the strike and was earning the trustees' ire as a result.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

Bob Smith.

Hayakawa

He was a fine, brave man, but he had one psychological weakness. He didn't like to take orders from anybody. When the trustees appointed him president, acting president or whatever it was, it would have been all right except for the fact that the trustees started to give him orders. He rebelled against the trustees, which was kind of a foolish thing to do when the college is in an uproar already.

Shearer

So he resigned, and you were appointed. At this point, the strike was still in--

Hayakawa

No, I'm missing a document somewhere. I don't know where the hell to find it. At the time Bob Smith was president, I wrote a memorandum to the trustees on what the situation called for. [chuckles] I didn't really know that it would result in my being appointed as the next president. I wish I could find that damn letter.

Shearer

Yes, I would like to find it. It ought to be around, I would think.

Hayakawa

Yes, it's true there are so many things that ought to be around, and I can't find them.

Plans to Reopen the Campus

Shearer

Well, here we are: you have said yes to the chancellor, and the campus is, in the words of this article, "crippled by a strike, stunned by small fires and bombings with classes suspended at various times and now finally shut down." I gather you went into San Francisco State and met with the trustees at that point.

Hayakawa

I don't know if I ever met with the trustees at that time. The trustees were meeting in Los Angeles.

Shearer

I see. So this must have been at the school, maybe with the faculty and the administration, then. Somebody reporting on an initial meeting after you took over said that your main goal, as he observed it, was to get school open again. Is that a fair assessment?

Hayakawa

Yes.

---

Shearer

And that your first plan for how this might be effected was to reopen the campus on the following Monday with Japanese gardeners planting bushes and flowers, and having leis for the policemen to wear, and Mahalia Jackson singing at noontime.

Hayakawa

[laughs] Did I plan all that?

Shearer

That's what this person remembered from that meeting.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think there was something like that--whether it was a serious proposal or whether this--you know, to try to give some warmth to what would be a confrontation, to try to break down the confrontational elements. Of course, I think it was ridiculed by people who would--

Hayakawa

Who wanted to keep the fight going.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, but also, you know, it did seem downright inappropriate. [chuckles]

Hayakawa

I wanted to get Mahalia Jackson in this.

Shearer

So at that point, you were willing to entertain an unusual way of having the campus reopened?

Mrs. Hayakawa

But not to soften the idea of having the police, who he thought were very important. One of the big issues for the students was getting the police off the campus, and so this would be a way of using the police to support the administration's intentions to keep classes going but still trying to extend some civility.

Shearer

But you changed your mind or were prevailed upon to change this plan to have the flowers, and the planting, and the singing. Why did you change the plan?

Hayakawa

I don't recall.

Mrs. Hayakawa

[to Hayakawa] I don't know how serious you were on this, but I seem to remember that everybody was too afraid of all the threats of violence to think that such a thing would work, I suppose.

Hayakawa

So Mahalia Jackson didn't get there.

Shearer

Mahalia Jackson didn't get there. Instead, the reports are that there was a very strong police presence on campus that day.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

A police presence was part of the Mahalia plan, too. There were going to be police, but Mahalia was to be an offsetting factor. It was hoped that stability would prevail. Fat chance--

Shearer

Well, I guess we'll never know. [laughter] Maybe it would have. It certainly would have surprised, I imagine, all the participants of every stripe.

[interruption in tape]

Mrs. Hayakawa

For weeks afterwards, we were flooded with mail. Friends came and helped me open and read letters, because we thought maybe somebody might be applying for admission or something [laughter]--the official mail might have gotten mixed in. There were few things that weren't letters of support.

Hayakawa

Saying, "Hang in there, Doc!" [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

I would say at least 90 percent of them were strongly favorable. They came from everywhere.

Silencing the Sound Truck

Shearer

Can I back up just a minute to the day of December 2, which is the day you pulled the plug? Will you tell me how that happened?

Hayakawa

I have to think back to that day.

Shearer

That was the day that you opened San Francisco State. That was your first act as acting president. One account has it that you were addressing a group. The students came around with a sound truck that drowned you out.

Hayakawa

I climbed onto the sound truck and pulled out the wires. [laughter]

Mrs. Hayakawa

That did it for the nation.

Shearer

Did you think, before you did that, about pulling the plug? Why did you climb up on the sound truck in the first place?

Hayakawa

I was feeling acrobatic, I guess. [laughs]

---

Actually, I wasn't giving a speech or anything. I was in my office when I heard the sound truck, and I realized there was an uproar going on. When I went out I saw a sound truck cruising 19th Avenue. [gesturing] Here's my office over here behind some other buildings.

Shearer

At an angle, around the corner, yes.

Hayakawa

I could hear it from my office, so I put on my tam-o'-shanter and walked out there. I saw what was going on. The sound truck was parked, and two guys were sitting in the cab, controlling the sound. I told the guys in the front cab to shut off that damn sound, and they answered me in two words: one a transitive verb and the other a personal pronoun. [chuckles] So I just climbed up on top of the truck and pulled the wires out to the loudspeakers.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Did you then talk to the crowd from the sound truck top?

Hayakawa

No, there was no chance to do that because immediately after I got onto the sound truck, some students climbed on after me. Half of them were pro-sound truck and pro-student strike, and the others were pro-Hayakawa. [laughs] And I didn't know which was which. There was one who said, "Don't fight with me, Doctor. I'm your friend."

Shearer

So they had jumped forward to protect you?

Hayakawa

They jumped onto the sound truck, too, two young men, to protect me.

Mrs. Hayakawa

There are famous pictures of that melee, aren't there?

Shearer

Yes, yes. So the sound truck was exhorting the students to maintain the strike and stay away from classes?

Hayakawa

Yes, I remember this one guy started to fight.

##

Hayakawa

I started to struggle on top of the sound truck. He said, "Don't fight me, Doc! I'm your friend." [laughs] He had come to protect me.

Shearer

But everyone recognized you; they knew who you were?

Hayakawa

I was wearing my tam-o'-shanter.

---

Shearer

And you had been wearing your tam-o'-shanter for some years, so this was your trademark?

Hayakawa

I had lost my tam-o'-shanter that morning. Somebody had picked it up and brought it to my office later that morning.

Mrs. Hayakawa

That tam-o'-shanter was what made him a symbol easy for cartoonists to deal with and created instant national recognition.

Shearer

What happened next? After dealing with the sound truck, you went back to your office, resumed your desk work?

Mrs. Hayakawa

[chuckles] It was probably a war conference among his staff. The staff was divided, by the way. A lot of the professors were with the students who wanted to strike, and that was a tragic division of the college.

Shearer

How do you recall that? Were the divisions deep enough so that people didn't speak to each other anymore? I know that sometimes that can be--

Hayakawa

That could have happened, but I don't remember.

Mrs. Hayakawa

It was like being in the midst of a war--a very confusing time. And Don is not one to dwell on others' animosity and past hostility.

Public Reaction

Shearer

In the ensuing days, what kind of reaction did you get from the public and from the media following the sound-truck incident?

Hayakawa

I got cartons full of fan mail. [chuckles] Really, really. I thought I had enough of them here, you know. A couple of months ago I was down at the San Francisco State library, and they had three big cartons full of them there, too.

Shearer

How many letters would you estimate arrived?

Hayakawa

Several thousand, I'm sure.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh, yes. There were, I think, three boxes here. Two of them, I know, are still here. I think each one must contain many hundreds of letters.

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Hayakawa

And there are three cartons like that at the library.

Shearer

The tenor of the letters was favorable?

Hayakawa

Yes. I couldn't find an unfavorable one out of them. I went through a hundred in the box we had downstairs.

Shearer

What sorts of people were the writers?

Hayakawa

All sorts of people. There were some on professional stationery typed by secretaries, from a law firm or something, or a doctor's office. But an awful lot of them were semiliterate and contained sentiments to the effect, "You know, I never had a chance to go to college myself. I can't believe these crazy kids are tearing the place up. Hang in there, Doc!" [whispers] It was very touching.

Shearer

And these arrived in a very short space of time, just in the next few weeks after--

Hayakawa

No, no. All this started to happen the very next day. Some were dated that very day.

Do you want to see some of the letters?

Shearer

I think Jeanne has gathered a few here.

You mentioned that Bob Smith had a serious flaw, which is he didn't like to take direction from the chancellor. How did you take direction--or did you?--from the chancellor? Did he try to tell you how to run things, how to use the police, when to call them in?

Hayakawa

He did very little directing. He just seemed to be content to let me handle the problem.

One thing is that I'm always polite in respect to higher authority. I never quarreled with the chancellor. Every now and then, I would give the chancellor's office a telephone call to report, to say what's been going on--in a very polite way.

The response was, "Hang in there, Doc!" [laughs]

Shearer

You must have felt very much on the firing line.

Hayakawa

I guess I was having a pretty good time, although I didn't know it at the time.

---

Shearer

How were you communicating with the student protesters, with the strikers, during that week? Were you having face-to-face meetings with the leaders or--

Hayakawa

I can't remember how it went.

Mrs. Hayakawa

[returning to room with letters] Jeanne has these all organized. I don't know if they're organized to suit the present purposes, but--

Shearer

Oh, look at this. [reads] "Letters of support, December 1968, Volume Two."

Mrs. Hayakawa

These are from a sample of several hundred letters dated from December 4, 1968. She says they were not selected to be important people or anything, but it looks as if many of them were here in this bunch--December 1968 to April 1969. I don't know what the plan was in doing all this sorting. [reads] "To S.I. Hayakawa, a noble man. I am poorly educated, so I send to you with good will these little thoughts--"

Shearer

Oh, could you sit a little closer to the mike?

Mrs. Hayakawa

[laughs] I didn't intend to read them.

Shearer

Oh, just a few.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I just found one that was written in handwriting instead of on office stationery. [hands over a bunch of letters] I'll give you these. I thought you had looked at these already.

Shearer

I did look at some of them.

[pause] These are not names I recognize, but it's clear that they are a variety of people--some CEOs and presidents of companies, some handwritten notes. Here's one from Dublin, California.

Mrs. Hayakawa

[reads letter] "I'm fearful for you, though. Can you wear a bulletproof vest? I hope your home is guarded, including your car," et cetera. And this one, "You are wonderful, but we also need you, and I want you to be very cautious. My sincere good wishes."

Hayakawa

If you were very cautious, you wouldn't get anything done. [laughs]

Mrs. Hayakawa

[noting address] Thousand Oaks.

---

Shearer

There are several here from teachers and principals.

Mrs. Hayakawa

These are later ones. These are February 1969. I don't know what was going on then. It must have been still a considerable uproar.

Shearer

[noting addresses] From Los Angeles, from Gilroy, Vallejo, many from San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego. [pause] Burbank, Arcadia, Redondo Beach, Cerritos.

Mrs. Hayakawa

[reads letter] "Thank you for your self-sacrificing efforts to restore order in education to San Francisco State. Please don't give up. We support you." He signed himself, "Citizen, Taxpayer, and Parent."

Shearer

Yes. "I am writing a letter to let you know the majority of taxpaying, law-abiding citizens are behind you 100 percent and all the way." Los Angeles Biltmore. Lompoc. Here's three-page, single-spaced typewritten letter.

Mrs. Hayakawa

You could go through a box of these and not find a negative one in it. There's just such an overwhelmingly--

We did kind of treasure and set aside the ones that said, "You bastard, you!" or something like that, because they were so rare. I don't know if they were still in those boxes or not. We didn't know what to do with all the letters. It was impossible, of course, to keep up with them.

Shearer

One of the writers who was concerned for your safety urged you to exercise caution and live carefully, that there were people who would threaten you. Now, I understand that the police did take some measures to protect your safety. What did they do?

Hayakawa

The Marin-based police escorted my car with their car to the Golden Gate Bridge, and then the highway patrol took me to San Francisco, and the San Francisco police took over from there to the college.

Shearer

At what point did they start doing that? Right away?

Hayakawa

Right away.

Shearer

Beginning December?

Did you ever get any letters actually threatening you, threatening your safety? Did anything ever happen that--?

Hayakawa

I don't think I ever saw one.

---

Mrs. Hayakawa

What?

Hayakawa

Did we get any threatening letters?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Oh. No, I don't think so.

This, I think, is a fairly typical letter:

"My wife and I would like to commend you for the firm stand you have taken on campus disorders. We believe in the freedom of speech, discussion, and assembly as long as it does not infringe on the rights of others. Any minority groups that force the closing of colleges and prevent serious students from taking their places in the classrooms and threaten bodily harm to the administration have abused these privileges. Those apprehended should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Careful consideration should be given to the legitimate demands, and they should definitely be within the bounds of sound educational principles. In this extremely complex situation, please take note that our thoughts are with you." From a couple in Chatsworth, California.

That was the tone of so many; it was so nice that people did understand. Some of them, however, were just rabid against the students.

Shearer

Did you undertake to answer all these letters?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No. It soon became impossible. I forget how we got them. [to Hayakawa] Did we always have a post office box? How were these letters delivered?

Hayakawa

They came to the college and were delivered here.

Effect on Family Life

Shearer

What effect did all this have on your family life?

Mrs. Hayakawa

[laughs] Considerable. Don was always in some kind of conference or war strategy meeting until all hours. Then he would come home accompanied by the police car. I can't remember what our children were doing in school and what their classmates thought of this. I would like to ask Wynne.

---

Shearer

Yes, I was going to ask about that, because feelings ran so high.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Very high. In this community, there were quite a few of the faculty who were on the other side and who generally accepted this idea that to oppose the students was fascistic.

Alan was, in '68--he wasn't already in college, was he? He was born in '46. He must have been out of Mill Valley.

Shearer

Now Wynne would have been, what, a senior in high school, in '68?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes. She went to private schools, and then she went to Tamalpais High School.

Hayakawa

[reads letter] "Dear Sir, I'm just a plain citizen of California, a working man paying taxes as a little contribution to our wonderful state and nation. I struggled during the Great Depression, trying to get a college education, which I finally had to give up because I was unable to carry it financially. My, what I would have given to have a college degree. You are right." There were very touching letters like that, one after the other.

Shearer

People who took the time to write.

Hayakawa

They must have been deeply moved by it all. So were thousands of people.

Shearer

Did you feel discouraged at the level of passion with which the students were opposing you? I mean, you said you were so touched by the letters. There must have been times when you felt down.

Hayakawa

No, I was chipper through all this. [to Mrs. H.] Wasn't I?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, you were indeed. Yes. [to Shearer] He was never down. He was always--

There were a lot of knotty problems, I think, probably that bothered him--many of the faculty who were wavering or that couldn't stand up to the pressure of being called reactionary, fascist pigs. I think there were many broken friendships in the college. It was really torn apart. The people who supported the students had no real suggestions as to what should have been done instead. The students really, I think, had no absolute goal, but they were pressing as hard as they could to see what would happen if enough pressure was put on the administration.

---

There were no middle alternatives possible for quite a while. I don't know what was happening in January when some of these letters--

[to Hayakawa] I think they had a longer recess, didn't they, at the college? I think they had a little longer Christmas recess?

Hayakawa

Something like that.

Mrs. Hayakawa

And I think these letters started again in January. The ones I have just been looking at were from January, when apparently things were still fairly active. The cooling-off period didn't work very well.

Shearer

When did you feel that you had matters pretty well in hand--that things had cooled? When classes were open again?

Hayakawa

I don't believe there was a particular day or moment when I felt we had things in hand. We had them in hand right away.

Mrs. Hayakawa

How long did the police stay on campus? I don't remember at all.

Hayakawa

No, I don't, either.

Police Operations

Shearer

What criticism there was seemed to focus, for the most part, on the presence and then the use--or misuse, as some people said--of the police on campus. How did you direct the operations of the police?

Hayakawa

I didn't direct them.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, you could have. I mean, you were working with them, and they felt they were working with the administration. I'm sure that, either spoken or unspoken, you--

Hayakawa

[laughs] I'll tell you a little story about that. I had a meeting with the cops at some kind of place we would gather before the cops came on campus. We met with them, and I said that I had to give them a speech. So I told them what a serious responsibility they had and to try to be nonviolent and so on--in a way, a sober and unfunny speech. So I wound up by saying something to the effect that, Look, there are going to be

---

students who resent your presence on the campus; you must remember that you [police] are present in order to enable the educational process to go on. I wound up the speech by saying, "But if you find it necessary to make an arrest, keep a friendly smile on your face as you drag the son-of-a-bitch off campus." And the cops gave a roar of approval. It showed I was on their side.

Mrs. Hayakawa

Yes, they had been treated badly. Police in general in those days were treated as enemies by many administrators throughout the country. They needed the police, but still they were embarrassed to use them and had to adopt some of the students' attitudes. So that one sentence made this president's position clear.

Support from Governor Reagan

Shearer

What was Governor Reagan's role in the management of the protest? Or did he have a role, as far as you were concerned?

Hayakawa

He was very, very encouraging. He was on my side.

Shearer

Did he advise you?

Hayakawa

No, he didn't, but he did telephone once to say, in effect, "Hang in there. You're doing a great job."

Mrs. Hayakawa

He had a nickname for you. What did he call you?

Hayakawa

"Samurai" or something?

Mrs. Hayakawa

"Samurai"--yes. There was a very friendly telephone conversation in the pre-Christmas period. I think you and he talked several times.

Hayakawa

Yes, he was very friendly always.

Shearer

Was there any trustee who did not remain supportive or who was not supportive from the beginning?

Hayakawa

I don't remember.

Shearer

When things did cool down, after the strike, what was your relationship with the faculty? Were there terminations? Were there disciplinary actions taken by your administration?

---

Hayakawa

I don't recall. I really don't.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't think there were any.

Hayakawa

I don't think there were any. I do think Garrity would have handled all that. Garrity was our vice president at the time, a very fine man. You can't fire a professor for being a damn fool; that's how I got tenure.

Shearer

One thing I neglected to ask: what was the impact on your friends in Mill Valley? You started to say something about the fact that many of the teachers at San Francisco State live in Marin. Did this affect your social connection with them or with your neighbors and friends?

Hayakawa

We had no negative reactions from any of the people we knew, did we?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't remember having any. I'm sure we expected some from some people, but we were too busy to be going around socially and meeting people. I suppose I'd see people at the Co-op. Maybe I was sensitive to whether they said hello to me or not; I don't know. I just don't remember that situation at all.

Shearer

But you didn't notice any chilling among your circle of friends?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No, I don't recall that, but I was always prepared for it, in a way, because I knew this was a very controversial time.

Effects of Strike on San Francisco State

Shearer

What changes do you think resulted from the protest, from the whole protracted period of disturbance? Any changes for the good? Are any of the demands that the students made now in place?

Hayakawa

They already had a black studies department, which is one of the things some of the students were yelling for, but it was already in place.

Shearer

What do you think it cost the institution? I don't mean necessarily in financial terms but in, well, prestige, momentum, organization?

Hayakawa

I don't know. After all, you know, San Francisco State isn't Princeton or Vassar. People don't strive to get into State;

---

they go there because it's the most convenient, least expensive. Like City College of San Francisco, it's a non-prestigious institution. Even getting into Cal [University of California] is something parents can brag about.

Shearer

If it didn't have an impact on recruiting of student population, what effect do you think it might have had on faculty?

Hayakawa

I don't know how much recruiting they do.

Mrs. Hayakawa

The faculty continued to be quite divided for years afterwards between the backers of the two positions, didn't they?

Hayakawa

If they were, I didn't hear much about it.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I'm sure there were people who held resentment for a long time towards those of you who stuck with the administration.

Hayakawa

Reagan was very much on our side. [chuckles]

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, that didn't help at the college with some people.

Shearer

When the disturbances ceased, and peace settled about the campus, how did you see your role as an administrator?

Hayakawa

Well, I don't remember the details, but I know I was terribly busy.

Shearer

I gather you did a lot of lecturing and traveling at that point. [Hayakawa murmurs assent]

There was some criticism, actually, of the amount of traveling and lecturing. Some of the observers on campus and off felt, once the difficulties had passed, that you had become sort of an indifferent administrator. How would you rate yourself on that score?

Hayakawa

Well, I told my vice president--

##

Hayakawa

I've never had a particular taste for administration. I said to the vice president and to the treasurer and other top people--dean of students and so on--"You run the college the way you are accustomed to it, because you do it very, very well. I'm not accustomed to the job at all. What I think we need and which I think I can help supply is mainly public relations." I accepted a hell of a lot of speaking engagements around the state to

---

assure people that San Francisco State is an educational institution and a damn good one! [chuckles]

Shearer

I read somewhere that you had more than three hundred speaking engagements.

Hayakawa

I know I had a lot of demand for speeches, but three hundred sounds kind of high.

Shearer

Well, you would have had to have been every single day of the year, at least somewhat. This was just the number of invitations. It didn't talk about the number that you actually accepted, but that's really extraordinary, it seems to me.

Hayakawa

And I think it got me into the Senate. [laughter]

Impact on Political Allegiance

Shearer

So that was the turning point for you. What led to your changing your party registration? Did that come soon after the--

Hayakawa

Among the many things is that there were a whole bunch of Burtons, weren't there--Phil Burton and John and so on. Well, they marched on our campus in support of the student strike. I said, "There go those people, the leaders of the Democratic party. They're not on my side--to hell with them!" I changed my registration to Republican.

Shearer

Did you receive any support or encouragement from Democratic party leaders?

Hayakawa

There was no way of telling. That enormous stack of fan mail I have--they don't indicate whether Republicans or Democrats.

Shearer

But no official party leadership came forward to support you?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Who was mayor then?

Hayakawa

Alioto, wasn't he?

Mrs. Hayakawa

Well, he was a supporter, wasn't he? Did he support you?

Hayakawa

Yes, he was very friendly.

---

Shearer

I guess you felt you were at odds with the elected representatives in the Democratic party--certainly the Burtons and, I gather, maybe Ron Dellums or Willie Brown?

Hayakawa

I had no run-in with them. I had no direct interaction with any of them. But I knew they were actively supporting the student strike.

Shearer

Did you also feel that you were at odds with the party philosophy at that time?

Hayakawa

I didn't even think about them. [chuckles]

Mrs. Hayakawa

You stayed a Democrat for quite a while.

Shearer

If you don't mind my asking--you can always say, "Mind your own business." But are you still a registered Republican? [Hayakawa nods]

[to Mrs. H.] Did you change your voting as well?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I think we generally agreed on candidates to vote on. I didn't become a Republican until after he left Congress. I decided that it would be safer not to be drawn into official Republican politics. I would always have a good excuse. I was a member of the Ladies of the Senate, but I didn't have to declare my party. Everybody assumed I was a Republican, but I always would have had an out. But there were no political pressures on me at all. I just didn't want to be drawn into politics. I did still feel like a Democrat for a long time, but then finally I really changed my views on the parties.

I had grown up surrounded by a faith in the liberalism of the Democratic party, and although my mother's family had been Republican, my father was a Democrat. I think my mother remained Republican for a while, but voted for Roosevelt; she was really an Independent.

---

It was a real decision to change, but I didn't want to be involved in Senate politics or taking part in any rallies or appearing in public or anything like that. I never had to use that excuse. Don protected me from that.

Shearer

So you didn't do any campaigning here or--

Mrs. Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

--socializing officially in Washington?

Mrs. Hayakawa

No. Well, I went to Ladies of the Senate luncheons, et cetera, when I was there. They're very nonpartisan. They always treat each other with great civility and warmth. Don and I went to some White House dinners.

Shearer

What were some of the projects that the Ladies undertook?

Mrs. Hayakawa

[laughs] Ladies of the Senate was a social and support group for Senate wives, who organized themselves in various interest groups and activities for which there was plenty of scope in Washington.

But I think that many of them were good friends. I didn't spend full-time in Washington. I don't know if I was there even half the time, because we had kept the house here for Mark, and I was editing two journals. I went back and forth about once a month.

Shearer

Well, I'm going to thank you very much. I think we've covered the San Francisco State years. Next time, Stanley Diamond will be here. He will be available to sit in when we talk about U.S. English. Then we'll come back to the Senate years with Elvira Orly.

S. I. Hayakawa and Stanley Diamond

U.S. ENGLISH AND BILINGUALISM

Interview Conducted by Julie Gordon Shearer in 1989

Interview History--by Julie Gordon Shearer

The interview with Stanley Diamond, the earnest, energetic, fast-talking, then-chairman of U.S. English, and Senator Hayakawa took place on June 21, 1989, at the Hayakawas' home. For three-plus hours discussion ranged over the origins of U.S. English, the organization's state-by-state effort in California and elsewhere to have English declared the official language of the United States, bilingual education, and the shift in the time-honored goal of this nation of immigrants from a "melting pot" to a "salad bowl" of distinct flavors of racial and ethnic identities.

The two co-founders of U.S. English discussed at length their concerns that the efforts to establish English as a common language not be interpreted as anti-immigrant legislation. Both men worried that the actions of former U.S. English board member, John Tanton who was also on the board of Federation for American Immigration Reform, would blur the public perception of the goals of what they viewed as distinctly different organizations.

This theme was amplified later in the interview with Jeanne Griffiths, commenting in 1993 on the shift in composition of the board of U.S. English following Hayakawa's death. Diamond has since resigned his position with U.S. English and started a new organization--California English. (See Appendix C)

Diamond's ebullience and enthusiasm in describing his first encounter with Hayakawa's brand of semantics captured the excitement I had felt in the sixties. He confessed he attended the semantics lecture in the fifties by mistake, thinking he was to hear a lecture on the history of jazz, illustrated by Turk Murphy and Vernon Alley, which Hayakawa had delivered the previous week. He stayed because he was fascinated. "This is a cult that really works," he remembered thinking.

The edited transcripts were sent to Diamond for review in June 1991, following the processing described earlier in the Hayakawas' interview history. Within three months he found time in between his many speaking engagements to review the transcript, heavily editing his remarks by hand. After adding his emendations, the transcript was returned again for review to be sure we had correctly interpreted his handwriting. He returned the corrected transcript in fall of 1991.

October 1994

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

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XII U.S. English and Bilingualism

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##

Shearer

This is June twenty-first. Our interview is with Stanley Diamond and Senator Hayakawa. I've asked Stanley to be present because he has so many appropriate and interesting links to you, Don, and to the enterprise of U.S. English. I thought I would begin with a few questions for Stanley, and then whoever has the information and the inclination can respond, and we can just shift from interviewee to interviewee. [to Stanley] I guess you were--is it correct to say?--"California Director of Staff" to Senator Hayakawa?

Diamond

Northern California.

Shearer

And also, you were and are a founding director of U.S. English?

Diamond

Yes.

English as the Official Language Propositions in California

Shearer

I gather you were the driving force behind Proposition O in San Francisco, which required that ballots be printed in English only?

Diamond

Yes.

Shearer

And the California Proposition 38, aimed at having the California ballots in English only, and Prop. 63, declaring English the official language of California--also a statewide proposition.

Diamond

Yes. Proposition O was for San Francisco City and County only. It was ballots in English only.

---

[Margedant Hayakawa enters]

Mrs. Hayakawa

Julie? I sneaked in. I have a warmed muffin I found in the oven.

Shearer

How nice, thank you.

Diamond

Thanks very much, Marge. I hope it wasn't too much trouble.

[Refreshments are served]

Shearer

Do you want to go ahead and give the year and the percentage points?

Diamond

Prop. 38 also was the State of California, and that would have been November 1984. Proposition O won in 1983 in San Francisco with 62 percent. Proposition 38 in California won with about 66 percent, and, as you know, Prop. 63 won with 73 percent.

Shearer

Those are all substantial wins--extraordinary victories.

Diamond

You use the word "landslide" or "overwhelming" for anything above 56 percent.

Shearer

We'll get to discussing that in a little more detail a little later, when I will want you to tell me why you think the wins were so big. First, though, can you sketch me a little of your background?

Diamond

Yes. I was born in San Francisco and raised in Oakland. I went to schools in Oakland--grammar school, junior high school, and high school. I went to the University of California at Berkeley.

Shearer

Your field at Cal?

Diamond

It was in liberal arts--economics and political science.

Diamond-Hayakawa Meeting at Jazz Seminar in San Francisco

Shearer

I understand that you and Senator Hayakawa go back a long, long way.

Diamond

I think we've finally come to an agreement. [to Hayakawa] It was your first seminar out here, and I think it was '54.

---

Hayakawa

I think it was '53, but I really don't know.

Diamond

Well, it was no later than '54, Julie, but then it is so, so interesting. I don't know whether Don remembers the reason I attended the seminar. I was always interested in music. I've studied a lot of music, jazz particularly. The Senator was here in San Francisco because he's also an authority on rhythm and blues, and particularly New Orleans jazz. He was here to demonstrate the difference between New Orleans rhythm and blues and jazz and what today we would call rock. You had Turk Murphy on the stage, and you had Vernon Alley.

Hayakawa

I'll be damned; I'd forgotten about that.

Diamond

Yes, it was Everett Junior High in the Mission District in San Francisco. I saw the ads, and went there. I was astonished, because you had a house there of, maybe, seven hundred people.

Hayakawa

Yes, we had a big, big crowd.

Diamond

Don was the moderator and lecturer and explained the differences between Turk Murphy, who would play a few things, and then Vernon Alley, who would do a few things. It was extremely interesting, showing these differences in developing their music--their styles.

Shearer

That's interesting. What kind of a crowd was it? Was it from San Francisco State?

Diamond

No.

Hayakawa

It was a general "city" crowd.

Diamond

Yes, a "city" crowd of many younger people, I would say, in their twenties, but also adults--kind of aficionados who followed music, because San Francisco was the center of a developing popular music. Turk Murphy even then was extremely well known. He was a very close friend. They became good friends--Don and Turk Murphy--through the years.

Hayakawa

Vernon Alley was of that group, too.

Diamond

Yes, sir. Vernon Alley had his little group, and Turk Murphy had his, on either side of the stage. Don, you would call on one group to demonstrate a point you were making, and then Turk Murphy would do this "oompah-oompah" thing.

Shearer

Who was in the group at that time? Clancy Hayes and--

Diamond

Yes, who was it? Bob Scobie.

Shearer

Bob Scobie?

Diamond

Right. They were part of the history with Murphy. I rather think so, Julie, that they would have been there--Scobie and Clancy Hayes.

Shearer

So, Don, this could have been sufficient reason for you to have come to San Francisco--not only to speak on semantics but also to give one of your illustrated lectures on jazz?

Diamond

Yes, that was one purpose. And this was what introduced me to general semantics and Don on a personal basis. [to Don] When you were having the jazz seminar in San Francisco, I heard you say we were having another seminar in San Francisco in general semantics, and I thought, Well, what the hell. It's probably an extension of what we're going into today. It has something to do with music and developing jazz. So I did go, and I think that was within--it may have even been the following week.

---

English Spoken Here, Please

SI. Hayakawa, the California septuagenarian who retired from the U.S. Senate a year ago, is most often remembered as the senator who wore a tam-o'-shanter and had trouble staying awake during floor debate. But Hayakawa, a professor of semantics before entering politics, may have left a peppy legacy after all: his move to enshrine English as the sole official language of the United States, blocking what once seemed a trend toward bilingualism. He and his allies are pushing for a constitutional amendment mandating English, and though chances of passage are remote, the political verbs seem to be conjugating in their direction—particularly in California and Florida, two states where Spanish is especially strong.

The most significant recent sign of resistance to bilingualism came in November in San Francisco. "Proposition O," a non-binding referendum opposing the practice of printing city ballots in Spanish and Chinese, as well as English, passed by 2 to 1—and came close to winning even in Chinatown and San Francisco's heavily Hispanic Mission District. Hayakawa's Washington-based group, U.S. English, hopes to build steam for an all-out assault on the source of the multilingual ballots: a 1975 amendment to the federal Voting Rights Act that requires certain areas of the country to provide ballots in languages ranging from Spanish to Aleut. So far, Congress hasn't acted, but a recent Mervin Field poll shows that two-thirds of all Californians favor repeal, and the same wind may be blowing east.

Hayakawa admits some of his allies are racists, but he believes the real argument for English is more civic than xenophobic. "The language we share is at the core of our identity as citizens, and our ticket to full participation in American political life," he says. "We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourses, of the marketplace and of the voting booth." Supporters of making English official point out that past immigrants have learned the language successfully and that naturalized citizens are required to. They warn of Balkanization and point to Quebec's secessional struggles.

Supporters of bilingual ballots counter that learning the minimal English required for citizenship tests hardly qualifies immigrants for the befuddling array of propositions now on American ballots. Hispanic leaders argue that many of those who use the Spanish ballots are older people who learned English years ago and lost their proficiency. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund found that one-third of the Chicano voters it surveyed said they wouldn't have registered if bilingual ballots had not been available. Many Hispanics who support some bilingual measures resent the suggestion that they seek an entirely bilingual society. "You'd have to be a damned fool not to realize that English is the official language," says San Francisco Hispanic leader Ralph Hurtado. "If you don't speak English, you're a dishwasher."

Larger Debate: Unfortunately, the educational issue of how best to learn English—whether bilingually (subjects taught in the native tongue) or through old-fashioned sink-or-swim immersion—has been obscured by the politics of the larger debate. Many Hispanics see bilingual education as a matter of cultural pride and ignore evidence that if it's applied too broadly some students will never learn English. Likewise, many Anglos view the program as a threat to the country—and forget that some instruction in a native language can be a useful educational bridge that helps keep students from dropping out.

In heavily Hispanic South Florida, the issue has become so inflamed that it now spills over into unrelated matters. A requirement that all high-school students take two years of a foreign language in order to be admitted to state universities has been stymied, at least temporarily, by the state legislature—in large part out of misplaced chauvinism for English. Among those most opposed to bilingualism are blacks, many of whom believe the language barrier has helped lock them out of jobs. "First blacks were told they would succeed if they spoke good English," says State Rep. James Burke. "Then we were told we would succeed if we dressed right. Now they've added another ingredient. All you have to do is learn Spanish." A three-year-old ordinance establishing English as Dade County's official language is in no danger of repeal.

The Hayakawa backlash hasn't spread everywhere. It has missed south Texas, where bilingualism is firmly entrenched, and so far hasn't reached into the White House. In fact, Ronald Reagan may be moving in the opposite direction. Two years ago he attacked bilingual education as "wrong and against American concepts." Then last summer, in a speech before Hispanic veterans' groups, he endorsed the idea. The federal government now spends $139 million a year on bilingual programs.

With an election approaching, politicians will have to weigh whether the "Speak English" movement is strong enough to risk offending Hispanics, whose political power is now beginning to emerge. But as the San Francisco results suggest, even many Hispanics believe bilingualism may have moved too far. Several states are now moving to an "English as a second language" approach in public schools, stressing mastery of English while recognizing that many students will need special help in learning it. Hayakawa's constitutional amendment may prove unnecessary, if leaders learn the language of compromise.

Copyright 1984 by Newsweek, Inc.

All Rights Reserved

Reprinted by Permission

---

Recalling Anatol Rapoport, Douglas Kelley, Wendell Johnson

Diamond

The seminar was a five- or six-day session, with towering, towering personalities. I don't know whether they were towering at that time--it was my introduction to Anatol Rapoport, to Douglas Kelley, to Wendell Johnson.

Hayakawa

Douglas Campbell.

Diamond

Douglas Campbell, yes. Sure. All of whom were lecturers.

Hayakawa

Did they all come to San Francisco at that time?

Diamond

At different times. That's why I'm not sure. Rapoport and Douglas Kelley were there at the first one. Wendell Johnson may have been there, or he may have come later, Don.

Hayakawa

Whatever happened to Douglas Kelley?

Diamond

Remember? Suicide?

Shearer

Oh, really?

Hayakawa

Did he?

---

Diamond

Remember that? You and I talk about it every once in a while. Julie, it is--

Hayakawa

It is one of those great mysteries--why you do that when you've got everything working for you.

Diamond

To me, when I saw him and heard him, he stays vividly--I thought, Here is a guy who has everything you ever dreamed of having in this world; he has got it. He was very handsome, he was an M. D., a practicing psychiatrist, testified in those years at most of the criminal trials on "diminished capacity" for the defendant, usually.

Hayakawa

Didn't he act as an interrogator after the defeat of Germany?

Diamond

Yes, sir. He was at Nuremberg, too.

Hayakawa

He was at the Nuremberg Trials, yes.

Shearer

This is Douglas Kelley?

Diamond

Douglas Kelley, lived in Berkeley. He was, as I say, extremely handsome and extremely entertaining. He would do all kinds of card tricks and demonstrated points with magic--

Hayakawa

He was very expert at magic tricks of all kinds.

Diamond

So it made any of his public appearances highly entertaining as well as instructive. He had a wife and two children, lived in Berkeley. We went into shock one day, particularly for me. I thought, "My God! Here's a guy who has everything."

Hayakawa

He committed suicide quite unexpectedly.

Diamond

Twenty-five years ago, I would say, minimum.

Hayakawa

He seemed to have everything going for him.

Diamond

Everything. Everything.

Shearer

What was his role in the Society of General Semantics?

Diamond

He was a student of general semantics, of the senator, and of Korzybski.

Shearer

Did he contribute to ETC. as well?

Hayakawa

No. Well, he did at the end of the Second World War.

---

He was one of the American officers interrogating German prisoners of war, including top-level German general staff.

Shearer

So he was in charge of the interrogation?

Hayakawa

No, he was not in charge of it, but he certainly was one of those involved in the interrogation.

Diamond

He was one of the psychiatrists brought over there to examine them, to test, really, the levels--to what degree they were psychopaths.

Shearer

I suppose at least half the world wondered how could such a thing have happened and wanted to get some kind of psychiatric assessment of the state of mind of people who participated.

Diamond

That would have been Kelley's role. I've forgotten now. I think some were actually hung. Others were imprisoned.

Shearer

So it was partly his assessment on which the judgment and the sentencing were based?

Diamond

Oh, yes.

Shearer

So he held a very heavy responsibility, then, in his examining.

Diamond

Oh, yes. He wasn't the only one, you understand, Julie. There were many, or a number, certainly, of psychiatrists-- psychologists. It would have been almost a natural for him, because that's what he had been doing out here--as you say, a psychiatric evaluation of murderers and others.

Shearer

And Anatol Rapoport was also at this first seminar?

Diamond

He was a lecturer.

Shearer

Have you had any prior acquaintance with semantics?

Diamond

No.

Shearer

So this was your introduction.

Diamond

I didn't know what the hell they were talking about.

Shearer

But did you have a sense that it was--?

---

Diamond

I was waiting for somebody to come out with a guitar or a piano and say, you know, "You've been listening to all this stuff. Now we'll get down to why we're here." [laughter]

Shearer

Well, how did it strike you?

Diamond

I was fascinated in this sense: it was the beginning to what I thought was a panacea for curing all the ills of all the world forever! I was struck with it. I thought, This is a cult that really works.

Hayakawa

We really sold him a bill of goods. [laughter]

Diamond

Yes. We're still here. That's right; it was a top sales job.

Shearer

Well, I have heard other students of Senator Hayakawa remark on how clear and compelling the links of the theory to practical life are, as he presents it. Is this--?

Diamond

Oh, yes, I guess the impact must have been sufficiently strong to me that I'm still here. Because I didn't ever miss a seminar after that.

Shearer

Really? And how often were these given?

Diamond

They were annual, until Don came out here to teach, and then I hooked into his classes at San Francisco State right away.

Becoming Hayakawa's Student in Semantics

Shearer

Do you remember anything about Senator Hayakawa's educational approach? Did he just talk to you?

Diamond

He not only was a marvelous lecturer, but it was all easily understandable and loaded with examples, because we read, in addition to a lot of other things, Language in Thought and Action. Language in Thought and Action is highly readable, loaded with examples that are, as you point out, practical. They have to do with how you function in your job, and at home, in personal relationships, marriage, work--whatever. I thought it did have immediate applications in learning to listen, for example, in the clarity of one's own presentation, in listening for exchanges that had meanings, and if they didn't, exploring them for clarification--that sort of thing. All this was easily understandable out of general semantics.

---

Of course, today, you know, you're exposed to all these courses in success, in persuasion, by [Dale] Carnegie, and a hundred others. I think, for me, that your course was the first time in a very practical way, as well as in depth--all these are terrible generalizations, but I remember I felt less afraid of risk-taking, for example.

Shearer

Really? Do you remember what the example was that drew you in or opened you to those possibilities?

Diamond

Not a specific. I have trouble with a specific one, because every lecture offered some, and then seminars--There's something else that always appealed to me, too, in a cultish way. It was the very separate vocabulary that went with general semantics--the et cetera; there was always more to be said and more to be thought about. There are no total yes-and-no answers to everything. It had a kind of vocabulary that also made it cultish.

Shearer

And that was appealing?

Diamond

[nods affirmatively] You know a lot of things that other people don't know. There are many general semanticists who felt that way.

Shearer

Really? I would imagine it also was something of a bonding element.

Diamond

Oh, no question. No question, because we established a chapter of the International Society for General Semantics here in 1969. This inside information.

Shearer

How did you act on this information as a chapter?

Diamond

Well, we met, let's say, about once a month, and we would discuss Language in Thought and Action and Korzybski for our own clarification and study of new ideas.

Shearer

Was Don involved in this? Did he come and visit?

Diamond

No, not regularly. Occasionally, because, I think, Don still hadn't moved out here when it started.

Hayakawa

I was still living in Chicago at the time.

Diamond

Do you know some are still at it, Julie? Bob Wanderer is still at it, Don.

Hayakawa

Is he still maintaining a study group?

---

Diamond

Yes, they have a chapter here. Of course, so many of them have died. Charles Trilling died a year ago or so. He was in that original group.

Shearer

Are these people drawn from the very seminar that you attended?

Diamond

Trilling was. Wanderer, too.

Shearer

Was there any common feature amongst the members of this class that you could point to?

Diamond

Looking for clues, for help in living lives of purpose and fulfillment. There are a number of things in general semantics in addition to looking for a personal development, the Korzybskian ladder--levels of meaning and levels of communication that we all had. We would look for these different levels of communication for meaning, and it was not unusual to say, "Your level was too abstract, Julie. Bring it down a little bit to something factual, and let's talk at that level."

Shearer

So this kind of mutual coaching was a feature of your exchange.

Diamond

Oh, yes, and we could talk to each other that way.

Applying General Semantics to Life

Shearer

Did you find that you could apply that outside the group of people?

Diamond

Immediately, because in all communication, I would be listening: what level is Julie talking? I would immediately say, "She's not at the reality level. She's totally abstract."

Shearer

And is this true? [laughs] Should I change my question?

Diamond

You'd better watch it.

Shearer

I'm being mindful of what you're saying.

Diamond

But you learn automatically, after a while, to listen to the communication level, and to ask, is it congruent with the real world--I've forgotten what term we used here--or are we just making conversation with each other, learning to feel out each

---

other in an initial experience. What do we call that? I forgot what we call that, Don. Phatic communication?

Hayakawa

Phatic communion.

Diamond

Phatic communion would be just reaching out for each other: "Hello, how are you doing today, Julie? Where do you live? Where did you go to school?"

Shearer

Maybe even talking about the things that both of us know to be the case and not really communicating any factual things?

Diamond

That's right. We're getting acquainted.

Shearer

Reiterating.

Diamond

Yes.

Hayakawa

We're doing a great job of stating the obvious right now. [laughter]

Diamond

Yes. So that was phatic communion, that's right.

Shearer

How did you come to write for ETC.?

Diamond

Because they accepted something. [chuckles]

Shearer

I'm curious--The article is about dairy cooperatives. How did you happen to--?

Diamond

I was working with the State of California--I don't think I had been out of school very long. I was working in an area in the Department of Agriculture where I started a new marketing approach, involving new agricultural legislation that had to do with setting price controls in the dairy industry. I was interested in it because it was one of my areas--economics.

Hayakawa

That was your job, as a state employee?

Diamond

That was my job, yes.

Hayakawa

That's the first comment I've ever heard you make on that particular aspect of your life. You've never talked about that.

Diamond

Yes. That was really a little story about my little unit.

Shearer

How did you apply the lessons of general semantics to that?

---

Diamond

I've forgotten the article, but the article was about that application.

Shearer

And it was right down at the level of dairy cooperatives?

Diamond

It wasn't so much cooperatives; it was in dairy marketing and price control. As I say, I've forgotten the article pretty much, Julie, but it had something to do with the interrelationships of people in the unit, rather than anything technical. That would have come right out of general semantics. Later on I became a hearing officer for the department, hearing complaints on violations of the Agricultural Code laws and preparing administrative decisions on the violations.

Shearer

In the footnote to the article which gives a little thumbnail sketch of you, I think you described yourself as a sometime-employed writer, musician, and actor. That wasn't part of your little biography that you gave just a moment ago.

Diamond

No, well, because it was so minor, but I did act, whenever there were plays I could get into. There were always minor parts in the professional theater. I was registered with an agent in San Francisco, but whenever some touring company would come through here and needed somebody for a line or two, and I could get it, I would be happy to take it. Yes. I remember one with Maurice Evans, for example. I guess he's dead, too. A number of, I'd say, very minor roles, and sometimes just standing in a line with other people on the stage, in the background.

Shearer

But engaging?

Diamond

Oh, yes. I loved it. Of course, I have two kids in that business, too.

Shearer

Oh, you do?

Diamond

They're both in L.A. One is an actor, always looking for a job. They have a little company. They put on their own plays. The other is with some TV production company, but her area is music. She books bands and does interviews and that sort of thing.

Shearer

Very interesting. So you do keep the lines open there.

Diamond

They're both show-biz types. They'll never do anything else.

---

Stories about Korzybski

Shearer

When you were in the class--thinking back to what you said about the appeal of this specialized language, I gather that Korzybski himself had a far more technical language that he used and which, I guess, Don departed from, to some extent.

Diamond

Although I've never met Korzybski or taken any of his classes, I'm sure that's true. He was much more formal and scientific, in-depth. I gather everybody has anecdotal stuff on Korzybski. Everybody has a million tales of how weird he was.

Shearer

How do you remember it? What do you recall?

Diamond

I just remember from stories Don and others have said about Korzybski.

Hayakawa

Did you ever take a seminar directly from Korzybski?

Diamond

No. I've never seen him, Don.

Shearer

Do you have a favorite?

Diamond

What I was telling you about--gee, if somebody would trigger them, I'd think of others. But I don't know whether it was you or someone telling me about Korzybski--that he would go to an open window on a nice day, and the class would be over here [gestures], and he would talk out to that window there for an hour.

Hayakawa

I don't remember that.

Shearer

With the students straining to hear?

Diamond

Yes. [chuckles]

Hayakawa

Now, that's a story I had never heard.

Diamond

I was trying to think whether you had once told me what he had called you.

Hayakawa

Heathen.

Diamond

Yes, heathen, that's right.

Hayakawa

It always came out "de heeden." [laughter]

Diamond

Yes, I guess that was it. He called you the heathen.

---

##

Hayakawa

That is, that I came from a non-Christian background.

Diamond

Yes. That's the way I thought about it--a non-Christian crowd.

Shearer

But were you the non-Christian? I thought you said your mother was Christian.

Hayakawa

Sure, I was Christian. I went to Sunday school when I was about this big.

Shearer

So he was looking to the "label."

Diamond

Oh, yes. Well, I don't know. Did he have a sense of humor, Don?

Hayakawa

He thought he had. [chuckles]

Diamond

He did?

Hayakawa

Not much, no.

Diamond

Because he wouldn't have said that seriously, I guess. He might have said it in jest, that's all I could think.

Shearer

Yes, it certainly seems contradictory to his whole approach.

Developing a Friendship around General Semantics at San Francisco State

Shearer

How did you and the Senator become friends?

Diamond

Well, it really started--after the seminars there would be socials of one kind or another. There were not only you, but Kelley, and Johnson, and even Rapoport, who was kind of a cold character. Oh, from time to time, we would go to a restaurant or bar, have drinks--something like that. I think that started it, but it really developed after you came to San Francisco State.

Hayakawa

Yes, but before San Francisco State I had seminars here--about '52 is the earliest, I think.

---

Diamond

That must have been it. We would get together after these seminars during that one week. There would be a certain amount of socializing, because there weren't very many people at these things. There would be twenty-five or thirty, I think, tops. And then some would disappear, so I'd hang around, and we'd maybe go out to a restaurant, get to know each other a little bit. I don't think it developed seriously until--gee, I remember I had that apartment over there near San Francisco State, and you and some others came over. I've forgotten whether that was after a seminar or after a class. You were at San Francisco State then.

Shearer

Did you continue to take classes at San Francisco State while Don was teaching?

Diamond

Yes, everything that Don had and then one or two others who taught general semantics. That was remarkable--the classes at San Francisco State. Let's say that there were about two hundred to two hundred and fifty seats in that class.

Hayakawa

Big, big lecture class.

Diamond

They were gone. They were gone [snapping his fingers]. Registration in that class was always cut off. [to Don] You were very, very hot property.

Shearer

And this was the case very soon after you arrived?

Diamond

Immediately.

Hayakawa

I had big classes as a visiting lecturer for two or three summers before I came here to teach at San Francisco State.

Diamond

I remember the regular classes, the for-credit classes. As I say, there were about two hundred to two hundred and fifty, and then I was one, along with about five or six others, who took small groups. We had a discussion afterwards or something like that. I think then we began to get closer together. I guess we were, kind of, third-line teaching assistants. After our discussion groups, we would sometimes get together with Don or someone he would appoint to share what would happen in the smaller groups.

Shearer

I'm trying to get a handle on what sort of educational approach was used in the smaller groups. I gather Don was not always present. It was his lieutenant who was--

Diamond

No, we would go into a small room with six or seven people--ten--talk about what Don had lectured about. I guess

---

you keep reaching, Julie, for more of the substance of general semantics?

Shearer

Well, not so much the substance of general semantics, which is amply documented, but Don's manner of presentation.

Diamond

I think that was one of the major attractions. It was always easily understandable and always loaded with examples that fit. Then, he was particularly good--it always struck me. There would be questions from an audience of two hundred and fifty people. Let's say that there would be twenty minutes, whatever, of questions. They would range from the most abstruse, philosophical questions relating to general semantics to something very real--what happens if I have two feet that don't match--or whatever. He always had an acceptable, reasonable, rational answer, and I thought, "My God! Where the hell does this guy get all his goddamned information?" For this extremely abstract stuff, whether it be religious, whether it be scientific, whether it be personal, there was always an adequate answer. I think that was the continued attraction of the class, by word of mouth.

Student Unrest and Hayakawa's Presidency

Shearer

You were present at San Francisco State during the fifties up through the sixties, I guess. How would you characterize the student body? How did people change over those years?

Diamond

Oh, you mean during the turbulence?

Shearer

Well, yes. What do you remember when you started? Could you characterize the students?

Diamond

Oh, you mean other than the violence--the revolt? Of course, the incidents were galore. I don't know if that's what you mean, but stuffing toilets, breaking doors, preventing kids from getting into class, just blocking sidewalks, and yelling, and taking over the teachers--it was really a kind of a thuggery, showing power through force. That's what was done, pretty much, both in the sense of keeping other kids out of class or out of school--

Shearer

This is during the strike in 1968?

Hayakawa

That never affected my classes.

---

Diamond

I don't know whether the whole school was closed down.

Hayakawa

No.

Diamond

Do you know what I think, Don?

Hayakawa

No.

Diamond

The strike was when you were president, so you didn't have any classes.

Hayakawa

During my presidency.

Diamond

You came in. I guess there was one who resigned, and then you came in.

Hayakawa

I was the third president.

Diamond

That's right.

Shearer

Let's see. In 1968, he was the number three who came in.

Diamond

Right. I don't remember--

Hayakawa

The first one--

Diamond

I remember [Robert] Smith.

Hayakawa

No, that's the second one. The first one was--

Shearer

John Summerskill.

Hayakawa

Summerskill, yes.

Shearer

You were on campus in the daytime. You were taking day classes.

Diamond

No. I took, maybe, one day class, but they were almost all at night. It wasn't only Don. There were one or two others who taught general semantics. I remember some woman. I had classes with her, too. Remember you had Elizabeth Wilson? Remember Wilson, the English prof? She was not a general semanticist, but she was certainly very close to your ideas. She taught there. She's a good friend of Don's. I'm quite sure I had a class or two with Wilson, and I remember some other woman. I don't know if I'm responding, but there were other classes, and I took all I could get.

---

Shearer

I was interested in your impressions of the student body, comparing how the students struck you when you first began to be on campus and how they changed over time.

Diamond

I'll tell you why I'm not really equipped for it, because I was not a full-time student during the days. I wasn't experiencing the daily turbulence and specific events.

I got interested when Don was appointed president with the hysteria on campus. By then, we were really quite friendly. I was living there. I was living in Park Merced, just across the street. That's when I got together with Don and one or two others and just said, "What can we do to help? This can't go on."

I had less of a role there until after the arrest, or maybe just before, because I remember going into Don's office when he was president, and, Julie, it was crazy. There was correspondence from all over the world, stacked up, like, that high [indicates a height of about three feet] in front of your desk, the president's desk. What we would do--we packed up that mail and brought it over here. We brought it to the house. There were four of us.

Shearer

This is following the sound-truck incident in November of 1968, when there was this outpouring of public support for Don's action?

Diamond

Right. It was, yes. There were thousands and thousands of letters. We brought them here. We set up a room where we opened them all and set them in little piles, depending on what was said--pro, con, strong, weak, that sort of thing. Those were pretty wild days until the big arrest. I was out there that day, too.

Shearer

Before I ask you about the big arrest--backing up to before Don was named or asked to serve as president, did you know that weekend--that would have been the Thanksgiving weekend in 1968--that this was afoot? Were you close enough to have had this knowledge--

Diamond

That the strike would get that violent or that the arrest--

Shearer

No, that Don would be appointed president.

Diamond

No. I didn't know that. I don't know whether he may have told you he got a call from Governor Reagan. [to Hayakawa] Did you tell Julie?

---

Hayakawa

No.

Diamond

It was a call from Governor Reagan himself--personally. He said, I've been hearing a lot about you. I think you're the man that might be able to quiet the crazy turbulent action in San Francisco. Will you do it? And Don said yes.

Hayakawa

Was that the way it happened?

Diamond

That's what you told me.

Shearer

Were you surprised that he accepted the job?

Diamond

No. I was surprised at the offer.

Shearer

[laughs] I see.

Hayakawa

Is that the way it happened?

Diamond

[to Mrs. Hayakawa] Remember that, Marge?

Mrs. Hayakawa

This is the trouble at San Francisco State?

Diamond

Right. It was a call from Reagan.

Mrs. Hayakawa

I don't know exactly what the governor said, but I know there was a call from the governor at the time that confirmed you [Senator Hayakawa] in your decision--to assure that you would have backing. You asked him if he would back you up if you did it, I think. He agreed to do so. You said something about that, I think, last week, as you told the story. I believe there was something about the governor calling you.

Shearer

I believe part of our earlier discussion had to do with a phone call from Glenn Dumke. Now, that doesn't contradict that the governor called. Both might have called.

Diamond

That's right, because he was chancellor, then, I think. I'll bet that's what happened.

Hayakawa

What happened?

Diamond

Dumke probably spoke with you as to whether the presidency would be acceptable. Maybe, right there, I would be speculating whether Dumke said, I'll call the governor. I don't know, but, whatever it was, the governor did call Don.

Shearer

But you weren't surprised that he said yes.

---

Diamond

No. When things get a little bit tough, he's a very gutsy guy. I've seen chairs thrown at him.

Shearer

Really? And what was that occasion?

Diamond

[to Hayakawa] Chairs were thrown at you, of course, in Denver. I don't know if you remember that.

Hayakawa

No, I hadn't.

Diamond

Or Boulder. They didn't want to let you speak.

Shearer

This was during the trouble at San Francisco State?

Diamond

No, afterward, when he toured as a lecturer. He was the dirty guy that put down all these beautiful, liberal profs and studies and university students. Some in the audience were attempting to prevent Don from speaking, and he said, "To hell with you. I'm not going to get off this platform. I'm going to talk." That's when things began to fly in the air. It cleared up.

Hayakawa

I have a book that gives an account of a scheduled speech of mine at the University of Colorado, and a group of dissident students who did their best to prevent me from speaking. I gave my speech.

Shearer

In spite of the furniture advancing on you?

Hayakawa

Yes. I think I have an extra copy of that.

Shearer

Yes, I can see that.

Diamond

I don't remember many chairs. I remember some tomatoes being hurled in your direction.

Hayakawa

Eggs.

Diamond

In those kinds of situations, this guy will not leave. He really gets rough. He's stubborn.

Shearer

Back to you. What was your role after Don accepted the presidency?

Diamond

Oh, well I was involved more to see if there was anything I or we--the little group of us--could do to help. Of course, there were both campus police and--I don't know if you want to get into your chat with [Mayor Joseph] Alioto and Chief of Police [Thomas] Cahill.

---

Hayakawa

Yes. Alioto helped me out.

Diamond

Don had--the mayor at the time gave him total support.

Shearer

Oh, he did?

Hayakawa

So did the chief of police.

Diamond

Right. See, so they provided the security. Of course, that was one of the other problems--you never move police onto a campus. It's an "invasion of that sanctified and sacred place of study and contemplation" and all that stuff. Well, I think that helped to add flames to the violence. I didn't have any university security police, and the San Francisco Police Department came out to help. They were all around. I had nothing to do with them. The only thing--I just witnessed the arresting of the kids, and all the patrol cars out there, and the kids being taken away.

Well, what I wanted to do, and the only thing we could do, was to get into--there was nothing we could do about the turbulence of restoring order or meeting with--there was one group of faculty who violently opposed Don and still do. Nothing I could do about them, except to oppose their views and actions. But it was mostly the thousands of letters--opening them, classifying them, and even replying to a few.

Hayakawa

There was an incredible flow of mail.

Diamond

It was crazy, crazy. And I had daily contact with Don. I was concerned for his safety. He had to have security coming home here from San Francisco State. There would be someone with him in a patrol car. So that was pretty much my role: to be in his office just about every day, to get all this mail and get it out of there. Then we would look it over and analyze it and assure ourselves that Don was okay.

Shearer

And, meanwhile, you were working for the state still?

Diamond

Yes.

Shearer

So this was an after-hours commitment?

Diamond

Well, no. First of all, I lived there, and my office was in San Francisco. It was nothing for me to go to campus.

Shearer

I see. And the other supporters tended to be members of the chapter?

---

Diamond

Yes, of the general semantics group. I know one lived in Park Merced. She came over here with me every day.

Hayakawa

Who was that?

Diamond

Aubrey Conrad.

Hayakawa

Oh, yes, I had forgotten about her.

Diamond

Yes, she lived here, too. She came over here every day, Don.

Incident on the Sound Truck

Shearer

How would you characterize--stepping back a little bit from the vast pile of letters you had to deal with--the reaction of the news media and the general public after this incident of pulling the plug?

Diamond

You mean the reaction? Of course, I'd say what had happened on the basis of how I understood this guy's personality--I would have predicted that something like that would happen. If he's going to be out there with that crowd, it doesn't make any difference how much violence there might be or what the threats were. He wasn't about to back down.

Hayakawa

I climbed right onto the sound truck. They had a sound truck, and they were yelling at everybody not to go to school, maintain the strikes, support the strikers, et cetera, et cetera. I climbed the sound truck and pulled the wire to the loudspeaker.

Diamond

Not only that, but the cameras were there.

Hayakawa

Yes. The important thing is that the cameras were there. I was wearing my tam-o'-shanter.

Diamond

That's right. They got a tremendous picture.

Hayakawa

This just happened before eight in the morning. I just climbed up on the sound truck, and a number of the students and the other people--some of them my enemies and some of them my friends, although you never knew which was which--climbed up on the truck with me.

Diamond

There's a little background. I don't know if Julie knows about it, whether you have told her about it, but you had given an order: "If you want to do all that yakking about anything you

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want to, you go over to this stadium. That is yours for all the talk you want, but nothing on this campus that's going to disturb classes." So they bring this truck onto the campus grounds. That was a violation of the order of the president. That's when you went out there and said, Take that goddamn thing out of here! Yes. I think you literally said, "Take that goddamn thing out of here!"

Hayakawa

[chuckles] I don't remember that, but I do remember climbing onto the sound truck itself. A number of young men climbed onto the sound truck right after me, and I didn't know it at the time. I got it figured out. Some of them were to prevent me from pulling the wires out of the sound truck. Others were to protect me from the first group. A couple of guys, I remember--big, strong, young men--came towards me, and I started to fight them off. They said, "We're trying to protect you, Mr. President. We're your friends!" [laughter]

Shearer

"Don't fight us!"

Hayakawa

Anyway, the important thing about all this was that it was in the open air, on top of the sound truck, I was wearing my tam-o'-shanter--

Shearer

And the media--they were there.

Diamond

Julie, you said it all. High drama, and it could be photographed right then.

Hayakawa

By noon, it was on every news broadcast from here.

Diamond

Everywhere, nationally. That picture--that was front-page stuff nationally, immediately--and then internationally.

Response from the Public

Shearer

What did that vast outflow of letters say to you?

Diamond

If they were in defense of Don's action, it was, "Thank God somebody has the courage and the guts to have some understanding that these people are whatever--thugs. We cannot let them take over not only the campuses but the country." That was kind of the terror--strong defense of Don with a kind of an undertone that this isn't civil disobedience, this is a threat to the stability of the country.

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Shearer

What did it mean to you in political terms? You said that you offered your help in sorting through the mail, that you put them into stacks according to pro, con, and to what degree. What were you thinking about as you sorted through all these?

Diamond

Julie, I'd say 90 percent of the letters were in support of Don. Mostly, I saw in the letters a defense of what Don did to maintain stability and security on campus for kids to learn. Writers argued that the strike was an attack on our democratic process, which is certainly one of the elements involved, and that these campus groups involved were promoting totalitarianism--a take-over by force. It was an underlying fear of a hell of a lot of people, at least as represented in that correspondence. Probably closest to it, Don, was the fear that, my God, this is going to happen in other places, and from schools it goes to the cities, and the counties--

Hayakawa

This may be too much for us to go through today, but I have a cardboard carton about this wide and this deep [gesturing expansively] all full of letters. They're not sorted, so if there are opposition letters in that pile, they're also in that same box. But there were very few opposition letters; the general public was on my side. So many of them were saying, "I never had a chance to go to college. Here are these damn hoodlums, who had that wonderful opportunity that I never had, trying to tear the place up."

Diamond

I have no idea whatever happened to those letters.

Hayakawa

Well, there are three great, big cartons of them in the library of San Francisco State. There's one downstairs.

Diamond

I was wondering. Well, okay. They're at San Francisco State. That I understand. That figures.

Shearer

Some people were critical of Senator Hayakawa's administration at the time of the arrest and so forth--dealing with the issue of having police on campus. As you mentioned, this was startling and dismaying to some people.

Diamond

I think it's fairly easy to identify them. Those who had at least a political label of "liberal" in the political spectrum opposed Don. Those who were middle-of-the-road and a little more conservative were supporters. I just saw opinions dividing along political lines. Don was the hard guy; he was the tough guy. He was considered a conservative; certainly on the "right"--a law-and-order president.

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Hayakawa

There are a lot of people who are neither liberal nor conservative who are, I think, apolitical at times. For example, take all the professors of home economics--these are the people with that particular ideology, you see, the man who was in charge of the athletic department, who coached the football team; and the school nurse; and so on. All those people were probably on my side, you know.

Diamond

Yes, I understand that. They just wanted to keep the classes open--you're quite right--without taking a political decision. I was thinking, I guess, in the more formal areas--political science or economics--

Hayakawa

Philosophy department.

Diamond

That's right, in the liberal arts, with history and philosophy, speech, all this stuff. A number of them never did agree with Don--still don't. They wanted interaction--more discussion. I think they enjoyed the chaos in their otherwise dull lives.

Shearer

In a way, it's a little ironic. I know that at one point you, Senator Hayakawa, were quoted as saying that--I can't, unfortunately, dredge up the exact quote--many of the demonstrators, who opposed the police action and held out for more discussion, came from English, philosophy, and that whole range of liberal arts disciplines. Of course, wanting more discussion, more interaction, more communication is very close to the whole idea of general semantics. Did you wonder what you had created?

Diamond

I'll tell you why more discussion wasn't appealing to me. Because by that time, the discussion had gone on for--what the hell?--months, Don--through two presidents, who said, Well, we're going to meet. We're going to have endless discussion. As long as you want to talk to me, we'll talk.

Succession of Presidents at San Francisco State, 1968

Hayakawa

It was [Dr. John] Summerskill who was a very nice gentleman and wanted to be nice to everybody. He fled, overcome by the problem at the San Francisco State. He called from New York to say he was not coming back.

Diamond

He ended up in Africa, didn't he?

Shearer

I believe so.

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Hayakawa

He was going to Ethiopia.

Shearer

Ethiopia. That was his destination.

Hayakawa

That's what he said. I don't know if he got out there or not. He just fled without telling anybody he was not coming back. Bob Smith became president.

Diamond

And then Smith continued all these discussions, too, Don, with the leaders. He even got it expanded to leaders in the community who have--I've got to say on my own how I felt about it. How long are you going to talk about this? Because, meantime, the campus was not functioning very well.

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Hayakawa

One problem with Bob Smith is, he had a kind of adolescent resistance to higher authority. After Summerskill fled and called us from New York, Bob Smith became president. He was a reasonably tough guy, you know, except that his great weakness was that he couldn't take orders from superiors without bristling and getting mad. When he was appointed president, trustees began to give him advice on what to do next, what to do next, and so on.

Diamond

He couldn't handle it.

Hayakawa

He just got mad as hell. We said, Just listen to them. You just listen to them, pay no attention, and go ahead and do what you were going to do. But he got into a fight with them instead. So I was the third president in 1968.

Hayakawa's Relationship with San Francisco State Trustees

Shearer

What was your practice, when the trustees called--to bristle or to be polite and do as you wished?

Hayakawa

I was polite. They asked me if I would take the presidency, and I said yes. Then I called Marge, and she said, "Good God!" [laughs]

Diamond

That's my recollection, too. The relationship between Don and the trustees was fairly good. Of course, this was when things were really wild, and I think they had to place their trust in

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him; they couldn't run that crazy show. It was madness for several days.

Shearer

Well, I imagine it's less appealing to take responsibility for a decision when things are so chaotic.

Diamond

Yes. Somebody has to call the shots.

Mrs. Hayakawa

They were probably glad to have him out there in front. If he made a mistake, it wasn't their fault.

Diamond

Well, Marge, of course. That was it exactly. They wanted a point man.

The Hayakawa Administration, December 1968-1973

Shearer

Did you have conversations with the trustees on the issue of the police--when they should be called, if they should be called, how much direction?

Hayakawa

No.

Shearer

How would you characterize Don's administration after things calmed down--actually backing up to the day of the arrest and then after?

Diamond

Oh, things stabilized very quickly after the arrest of a hundred and forty, hundred and fifty. I think they spent twenty-four, forty-eight hours in the slammer. Things quieted down. I'd say within a week, classes were resumed, profs were in there, and there was no longer, in our recollection, any serious disturbances. That stopped immediately. There had been acts to clog up the toilets, spread graffiti, break windows, block doors and sidewalks, crash classes in session, and all that--that stopped right away.

Shearer

So after the initial wave of arrests, were police stationed on campus?

Hayakawa

Yes, they were there for quite a while. They were very friendly to me. This is about 7:20 in the morning before classes began. I had a meeting with a whole group of them. It was sort of a wet day, and all these big guys there with raincoats, black, and looking very, very--you know, all cops are very huge to me as it is.

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I remember having to address them, and so I gave them all some conventional remarks of admiration and thanks for their being there, and so on, "but the important thing is that you must present yourself to the student body as if you're there as their friends, not their enemies." They were all very skeptical at my academic and cultivated voice and so on [chuckles]. I could see that in their faces, so I went and wound up the speech by saying, Your function here is to restore order and peace on campus--the speech was something to this effect--But if you do find it necessary to make an arrest, keep a friendly smile on your face as you drag the son-of-a-bitch off campus.

And the cops just gave a roar of applause at that moment. [laughter]

Diamond

It's interesting that from the beginning you developed positive relationships with law enforcement people, which, I think, extended to your senatorial career, where for law enforcement people throughout the country, you were always a hero.

Shearer

Really? Did that translate into support at the ballot box, too?

Diamond

Oh, yes, it did, strongly in California.

Origin of U.S. English

Shearer

When did the idea of U.S. English, or English as the official language--?

Diamond

It broke on the California scene and nationally when the Senator introduced a constitutional amendment resolution in the Senate. That was 1981.

Hayakawa

Was that that early?

Diamond

Yes, sir. In 1981.

Shearer

I'm guessing, though. That must be the tip of the iceberg. Wasn't there some buildup before then?

Hayakawa

I don't think so.

Diamond

I'm sure there was, but it probably was in the senator's Washington staff, because I remember when it came out here. When I first heard about it, I thought, Well, the guy's touched a nerve ending in this country that I think we're going to hear

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a lot about from here on. Whether there was some discussion among Don's staff, I'm not too sure. Before it was actually introduced, there would have been, but I suspect the idea is the sort of the thing that he would think about, and it would just come through out of his subconscious one night.

Shearer

You had ten co-sponsors on that, so there must have been some discussion with the co-sponsors, but did this just spring out of your mind?

Hayakawa

I don't remember the process. I do remember going around to ten guys and getting their co-sponsorship. They were so cordial. They just said, "Well, of course, of course."

Diamond

This was in the 1981?

Shearer

April 1981, yes.S. J. Res. 72 was introduced April 27, 1981. Section 1 declared, "The English language shall be the official language of the United States." Section 2 stated, "The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Congressional Record, 97th Congress, April 27, 1981. Died without action. The English Language Amendment was submitted in the House by Robert K. Dornan (R-CA).

Diamond

Do you have their names there, Julie?

Shearer

Actually, I don't have them listed here, but just that there were ten co-sponsors.

Diamond

That's all right. I was just curious, because some are still there.

Hayakawa

Steve Symms [R-ID]--Senator Symms offered the English Language Amendment in January 1985.

Diamond

Symms, and McClure, and [Walter] Huddleston [D-KY]Senator Huddleston resubmitted the Amendment as S. J. Res. 167 in September 1983.--he's out of office--others. But see, it would have been prepared in the Washington office.

Shearer

Do you recall, Senator, how this sort of came to mind? What was it that made you feel this was an important amendment to make?

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Hayakawa

It has something to do with my being Canadian. Canada has two official languages. I have been published in both English and French. Anyway, it had something to do with making English the official language of the United States. In one sense, it doesn't seem to be necessary to legislate that. But I kept thinking, "We have enough Hispanics in this country to put on the pressure to declare Spanish the second official language of the state of Arizona or wherever--New Mexico." That sort of thing could happen.

Goals of U.S. English

Shearer

I notice that two of the goals of U.S. English are to end official bilingualism, as it would be expressed at the ballot and in election materials and other government communications, and to reform bilingual education. I wondered whether the rise in the number and significance of bilingual programs prompted your introduction of this resolution.

Hayakawa

I don't recall.

Diamond

I think you're quite right with the Canadian background, because Don continuously talks about this. It may have had a great deal to do with it. In Quebec there is one official language, French. What I don't know and wasn't in on is what led up to the constitutional amendment resolution--what may have been said among your staff who dealt with this sort of thing? That would be extremely interesting.

Don is also capable of just--I can see it--presenting an idea at a staff meeting. "What do you think of an issue that would be important: English as an official language of this country? We do not have one." That would trigger a lot of discussion, and movement--thinking--on the part of staff at the time.

Value of U.S. English as a Political Issue

Shearer

[to Diamond] But in your thinking, it touched a real spark.

Diamond

I thought, "This is hot," immediately.

Shearer

And why?

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Diamond

Because, well, all kinds of things. You get sensitized to this a little bit in California, because we do have the Hispanics, and the Asians, and the fact that we had no official language. I thought of it even more as a very, very popular political issue. It has all kinds of elements in it, whether it's a language of common discourse--we can all understand each other, and that goes on forever--it's in the Constitution. It's an element of patriotism--a strong one. Two or more languages become divisive--separate us by language and culture--and it is inevitable. We were never going to have two official languages if we had this amendment.

I thought, also, just for political discussion, what it did for Don, too. I think it also gives you this: only a good American would say that. I saw a lot of political strengths in it, and it's easy to understand. You don't have to do anything but see it once. "Oh, yeah, I guess that's right." It has just a powerful political punch. I thought the issue could give Don national attention.

Shearer

It sounds like you're well-launched on the road to having English as the official language of the United States. Are there seventeen states now with legislation designating English as the official language?

Diamond

Seventeen states, right.States, in addition to California, that have adopted constitutional amendments or statutes declaring English the official language include: Alabama (1990), Arkansas (1987), Georgia (1986), Hawaii (1978), Illinois (1969), Indiana (1984), Kentucky (1984), Mississippi (1987), Nebraska (1920), North Carolina (1987), North Dakota (1987), South Carolina (1987), Tennessee (1984), and Virginia (1950-1986). Three states accomplished this by citizen initiative in 1988: Arizona, Colorado, and Florida.

Reform of Bilingual Education

Shearer

But how do you go about acting on the second part of that goal, which is to reform bilingual education, and why would you want to do that? Exactly what does that mean?

Diamond

This is a whole, great, big subject by itself. I can give you some highlights, but it has all kinds of stuff in it. We do not oppose something called bilingual education. That's a confusing

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term itself. We support very strongly the teaching of English to immigrant children. "Bilingual education"--the term has gotten beat up. What the Bilingual Education Lobby means by it is teaching a child in the child's native language. Do you know what that's about, Julie? I'll give you a thumbnail on that.

Shearer

Please do so.

Diamond

The kid comes out of a Spanish-speaking home. This is a typical example. He or she starts in, let's see, at kindergarten, with a teacher who is bilingual or an aide whose language is Spanish. That kid begins to hear Spanish entering into the school--maybe a few words of English now and then--and that will continue. The child will start to learn to read, for example, in Spanish. Lectures will be given, whether it's geography, history, or local events, also in Spanish. That's a common term for bilingual education. We say this is absurd. This is nonsense. This is crazy. All this does is keep the kid from learning English, and the studies seem to prove it; these kids are held back three or four years.

What we say, and there are all kinds of technical and academic terms for all this stuff, when that kid comes into school, we want that kid to begin to hear English--not totally, not to destroy the kid or frighten him, but to begin to hear English and respond in English. Our responsibility for that immigrant child is to teach that child English--get the child in an English-speaking setting as quickly as possible--and that's all. We're not responsible for teaching seventy, eighty, or ninety languages and cultures or history in the schools. These belong in the home, church, private schools, ethnic celebrations, that sort of thing.

That's where we separate very strongly from the bilingual education people. Now, the struggle is, they have a powerful lobby--a powerful one, based upon jobs.

Shearer

These are educators you're speaking of?

Diamond

I'm talking about teachers, teachers' aides, administrators, principals, the huge publishing industry that publishes materials and whatever, in Spanish and English, Chinese and English, whatever. They're powerful, too. They have their lobbyists who push hard. Our opposition is fighting for jobs, not the education of children.

Shearer

I see. So it's not an ethnic opposition?

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Diamond

Yes. Ethnic in the sense of Hispanic and Asian leaders do oppose us--ethnic in that sense. But the reason for their opposition is not a belief in the effectiveness of their bilingual teaching but rather to hold and increase jobs. Of course, you're only hearing my side of it, but it's the right one, believe me. [laughter] It's a huge issue, and we are deeply involved in this struggle. It's bitter.

Hayakawa

This means the ordinary public schools in parts of the United States with a large Hispanic population. They ask for Spanish-speaking teachers who sometimes don't speak English.

Diamond

Yes, that's true. There are some. We object to that absurd stuff--going to Mexico and Spain and recruiting teachers and bringing them over here. To me and to us, that is insanity.

Shearer

Of course, the classrooms in which these Spanish native speakers teach include Anglo children, too, whose first language is English, so in one sense it is bilingual in that the Anglo kids are getting a taste of Spanish.

Diamond

I'll tell you why they don't. Now, it's very difficult to generalize, because each school does things differently and each class will even do things differently. Generalizations are very difficult. The absurd ones are the Spanish-speaking teacher--here you have a class of thirty children. Let's say twenty are Hispanic and ten are Anglo. You'll have the class come in in the morning. Twenty of them will sit up in front. These are the Spanish kids. Ten of the Anglo kids are going to be in the back. Spanish-speaking kids are going to have their lessons in Spanish, and they're going to have somebody talking in Spanish. Ten American, or Anglo, kids back there are going to be back there doodling, "waiting for their turn." That physically actually happens. Parents scream their heads off: "My kid sits back there doodling, and these kids are being taught in Spanish. I want my kid doing something--learning to read, or write, or hear stories, or whatever." Again, I don't want to overgeneralize, but these are the dramatic ones.

Shearer

Some parents, at least in Berkeley, with whom I'm acquainted, send their children, at great personal expense, to schools in which all the teaching will be in a foreign language, so that--I guess that's waiting their turn. They'll never hear an English word spoken in a French school. I'm wondering why this wouldn't be looked upon--I mean, for the ten Anglo kids--as an interesting and enriching cultural experience.

Diamond

Because they're not taught that way. That isn't the way the system functions. The Hispanic kids are taught--are hearing

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Spanish generally. The Anglo kids are not mixed in with this--with a group of Hispanic kids and hearing Spanish. They are not getting a lesson in Spanish. That's the critical difference. Sending kids to French schools, or Greek schools, or Armenian schools--if that's what they're doing, that's beautiful. They are learning a language.

Court Challenge to Berkeley's Bilingual Program

Shearer

So you're saying that the bifurcation is between groups of people in the class, not between the two languages.

Diamond

Oh, yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. You should have some of the stuff--God forbid I load anybody with reading material, but an extremely important case involving the Berkeley Unified School District just finished here. Do you know the [Judge Lowell] Jensen case?

Shearer

Yes.

Diamond

Have you read any of the summaries?

Shearer

Really only the newspaper summaries.

Diamond

All right, no. Then I'll send you a summary prepared by the lawyers. It's excellent.

Shearer

Can you just take a moment to describe it, since it is a case in point?

Diamond

Yes, it's landmark. The Berkeley Unified School District is being sued by a group of plaintiffs who were parents of children in the system.Teresa P. v. Berkeley Unified School District, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, February 14, 1989. Order #C-87-2396. D. Lowell Jensen, presiding. The parents alleged that the children were not being taught English properly, because they didn't have credentialed teachers, that there weren't enough classes, that the methods used were not according to state and federal law, which would be teaching the child the child's primary language.

This was exhausting. It was a five-week trial. Sixteen witnesses from throughout the country on both sides and these top lawyers for Berkeley--Thomas Donovan and Celia Ruiz. The

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judge's decision held on every important point for the defendants that methods in teaching other than the child's primary language are as effective, if not more effective.

What Berkeley was doing was in the best interests of immigrant children. They had a number of plans. They had the individual learning plan, which teaches, of course, individually. They had teacher training programs for working with immigrant children. They had tutors brought over from UC to help out--volunteers, mostly. On every very critical point--for example, one of the other little statements we quote all the time is that the effectiveness of teaching is "time on task." How much time do you spend teaching that kid English? That equates to how fast and how well that kid's going to learn--time on task. The judge's famous statement-Ruiz spread all over this country--is, "A good teacher is a good teacher, regardless of what the challenge may be."

He is saying, essentially, if my only language is English, and yours is Greek, and that's all you know, I'm going to have you speaking English--I'm a good teacher--in a year. You don't need anybody else. That's the Berkeley case. Believe me, I'm oversimplifying it.

Shearer

As I understand it, that's just one of the issues at hand. Another is, do immigrant children need to have their classes taught by a native speaker? Well, I gather, according to the judge, no. They can learn English, in fact, if English is the acknowledged goal, certainly, as well from an English-speaking person.

Diamond

That's right. We have to start with this because this is fundamental. The only responsibility--the responsibility--our school systems have with immigrant children, under the law, is to teach them English, to help them learn the language of common discourse in this country, and prepare for entering our mainstream. That's our only responsibility.

We're not obligated in any way to teach bilingually or biculturally. That is not our responsibility. There's nothing wrong with that. That's great. We at U.S. English would mandate the study of other languages, but at the level of the immigrant child entering school, we want--and the law says--to get him or her into an English-speaking setting as quickly as possible, so you join the rest of these kids going into the American mainstream.

Shearer

Why do you think this is so important now?

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Diamond

Because of the power--many things, starting basically with the immigrant kid whose progress is being held back by his being taught in his primary language, who is not being brought into the English-speaking settings. What the bilingual lobby has been doing is to seek not only teaching in the child's native language but also to be teaching more and more of his root culture. That turns into nonsense, because here in the Bay Area, we have seventy-five, eighty languages and cultures. In southern California, over a hundred--every one equally entitled to the same shot. We come back to what's basic in the history of this country. The responsibility for other languages and cultures is a family responsibility--church, whatever--not the public schools.

Shearer

So what you're saying is, it's important to deal with this issue now, because there are so many immigrants, and it's not just one immigrant stream? It's not just one other language we're talking about. There's a major economic consideration?

Diamond

Yes, and a failed system. It doesn't work. It's enormously expensive. The important thing is, we're not bringing immigrant children into English-speaking settings the way we want to. I think that this contributes to the dropout problem of immigrants, which means that 30, 40, 50, even up to 80 percent are out in the streets, unemployed, and heading for lives of crime.

We say--and that's a dream, I suppose--that if that child really has the kind of a motivated teacher, and a motivating teacher, and is learning, he can learn English--enough to be able to read a television circuit, read a menu, get a job, fill out an application. Hell, many children in bilingual classes can't do that, Julie. Plus the frustrations of not understanding, I suppose. Again, I say this is one component that holds them back. There are others--socioeconomic components.

Shearer

Somewhere I read that the economic reward for learning English is not so pronounced today in what was described as a "sluggish economy," an undersupply of jobs. I'm not sure that I, without looking at charts, understand that leap, but it seems like a leap to me.

Diamond

Was the point that the job market, or in the service--

Shearer

The point was that the job market doesn't reward people for learning good English.

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Diamond

For functioning--whether it's the bank teller or a civil servant--English is, at a certain level, certainly necessary.

Shearer

In some of Don's earlier interviews, when I was asking him about the French and English issues in Canada, he did not seem to be particularly aware, as a child or a young man, of the presence of French speakers in his community. He said he didn't go into the French-speaking community as an English-speaking person, but that it was pretty clear that if you wanted a good job, in the English sectors, you had to speak English. If you wanted to rise politically, you had to be able to speak English.

Diamond

Sure. Again, I'll always come back to this, and particularly Hispanic kids--my own family are Hispanic in the sense that they're from Argentina. My wife's Argentinean. My kids are bilingual in Spanish. That's good, not bad. The English is with other children, in play, in reading; the Spanish in the home is our responsibility.

The point I keep stressing about the Hispanics and learning English: the highest rate of dropout, lowest percentage--lower than blacks--in the community colleges and universities--not increasing, even--and the highest dropout rate in the community college and the university. I would say a good chunk of that is because, first of all, they're not literate, fluent in English. They're not even going to make it through the community college, so they're blocked from the professions and middle management for careers other than the services. They don't even have the opportunity to compete for the better jobs.

I'm talking about Hispanics, distinguishing them from the Asians. Hell, what was it? Twenty-five percent are Asian at the University of California? They're never any problem in learning English. There's never any problem, although their leadership oppose us.

Shearer

Yes, that's interesting. I thought assimilation was a major drive among some Asian groups.

Ethnic Support for and Opposition to U.S. English

Diamond

Julie, just as Hispanic elected officials do not represent their own constituencies--the Hispanics--neither do the Asian political leaders and academic leaders. They not only do not support, they do not represent Asians, for the Chinese and

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Japanese especially. They don't represent them. English measures get the Hispanic vote. We get the Asian vote. Their leaders have a special role, whether it's Art Torres in our state senate, who is always espousing Hispanic causes. He does have a Hispanic constituency, and he'll always be elected, but he doesn't really represent the views of his voters.

Shearer

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment. Referring to "A Kind of Discordant Harmony: Issues in Assimilation,"Gerda Bikales and Gary Imhoff. No. 2 in a Discussion Series, U.S. English, 1424 16th Street NW, Washington, D.C.: 1985. the authors point out that Hispanics have one of the lowest voter turnout rates. So I'm wondering--are you really getting the vote, or are you getting the absence of the opposition at the ballot box?

Diamond

Yes. I know what you're saying. The vote is low. I guess I say: those who vote, of the Hispanics, support us.

Shearer

How would you characterize your supporters? I have seen the questionnaire sent out, I guess, this year. It was not dated, but it was fairly recent, asking the recipients whether they would support the idea of an English as the official language constitutional amendment and if they were speaking this, that, or the other language. Did you learn anything from this?

Diamond

I don't know where this fits, but in a way it does. I was in a demonstration at a little grammar school in Southern California called Glenwood School. The teacher, Sally Peterson, is president of an organization called LEAD [Learning English Advocates Drive]. A group of parents were demonstrating in support of Sally, who has been highly controversial. There were a lot of other people yelling, We've got to do something about her, and this organization [LEAD] doesn't represent the best interests of Hispanics, et cetera, et cetera.

Here was a very, very moving experience--Hispanic women, with one exception--a father--with their little kids, marching around, carrying signs, "We support Sally Peterson," "I want my child to learn English," and so forth--marching around in front of the school. Several of these women spoke utterly no English--none. Two of their spokeswomen did--one sort of broken English and the other able to say: "I live here. I want my kids to get decent jobs. They speak enough Spanish at home. They don't need it."

Shearer

Really? That's very interesting.

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Diamond

Yes. That reminds me. We have a set of pictures I'm supposed to get to Washington. Yes, it's fascinating.

Shearer

So, the Hispanic women--

Diamond

Mothers with their little kids!

Shearer

--were saying yes in that instance.

Diamond

Oh, yes. I was marching with them.

Shearer

Interesting. I wonder how the fathers feel.

Diamond

One father was there. Maybe two. One for sure, because he was interviewed. We filmed it. The father in the interview--I heard the interview--his English was really quite clear. He was dressed in a suit. He was with his little boy. He said, "I came out here today--I stayed off work--to support Mrs. Peterson. She loves my boy, and she is teaching him so that he's going to get a good job when he grows up. He's been going to schools. It's important for me to be here to let Mrs. Peterson know that that's what I think of her." Again, that's one father in the face of attention of what was happening to his kid during the day.

There were also some paid counterdemonstrators who were out there yelling, and they had their own signs, including swastikas and Ku Klux Klan signs.

Shearer

What was Mrs. Peterson doing that earned their ire?

Diamond

She formed the organization LEAD, and she is objecting, as a teacher, to teaching kids in their primary language. She says, "It's just damaging the kids. I don't do it, and I will not do it in my class." I think there are 60 percent Hispanics in that school.

Shearer

So, at least with those demonstrators, the economic incentives to learn English are still in place? They do see it as their connection to a better life?

Diamond

Oh, yes, parents, sure. What do the parents understand-- Hispanics--really? All they know--they take their kids to the school when they're first brought in, when they went over there, five, six, seven--take their kids to school, let them off, that's all they know. Teachers say, "I'll take care of your child." So the kids get funneled into Spanish-speaking classes, and they'll stay there. Parents will never even know, unless there is that parent who cares.

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In many of these cases, both parents work. They're tired at night. Then it's, Kids, go watch TV, don't bother me. These are the sad aspects of what happens to many, many kids.

Shearer

Yes. I was going to say, "Well, TV might be the great English educator," but I guess that is not necessarily a valid assumption, considering the number of Spanish-language stations.

Diamond

Believe me--the parents will have a Spanish-speaking language station on.

Bilingualism in the Diamond Family

Shearer

Just a little bit more on your situation--Mrs. Diamond is Hispanic herself?

Diamond

She's Argentinean.

Shearer

And do you raise your children in Spanish and in English?

Diamond

Yes. That was conscious. We wanted the kids fluent in Spanish. We've always had Spanish-speaking housekeepers with one exception. We insisted--my wife always spoke to them in Spanish. The beautiful thing about that is, you speak Spanish at home. That's all the children hear, and they respond in Spanish. When they would go out and play with other kids, they would speak English. That's a beautiful learning experience. You go outside, and you learn. They're very good at it, and today they're so goddamn grateful, Julie.

Shearer

Do you speak Spanish with your children?

Diamond

I'm all right, but I'm not good.

Shearer

Did you learn after you got married?

Diamond

Yes, really.

Shearer

So it really was a two-way street.

Diamond

Yes, except I would never work at it. I would understand them. "De dónde es madre," "televisión es muy mala," whatever, so I would get something out of that scene. [laughter] I'm really terribly, terribly sorry that I just never worked at it.

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Board of Directors of U.S. English

Diamond

One of our directors now--she's so super--Gloria Matta Tuchman. She's Hispanic. Her experience is something similar to mine, except she's Mexican. Her family is very well-educated, so she had minimal Spanish at home, but enough. Do you know what she's doing now, Julie? She's in a six-week immersion class at Cuernavaca in Spanish. "I've been taking enough of a beating all my life, so I'm going to come back speaking Spanish well."

Shearer

She is?

Diamond

She is, a six-week immersion.

Shearer

Can you tell me about any of your other directors--a little background?

Diamond

I can tell you about all of them.

Shearer

Gerda?

Diamond

Gerda Bikales is a Holocaust survivor. She was born in Poland, and spent her escape from the Nazis in Holland, France and Switzerland. I don't know how many of her relatives actually died in the concentration camps and in the ovens. She was very young, but she was pushed around Europe after World War II. She wandered around as a young girl living with relatives in Switzerland and England, I think. I think she was seventeen when she got here, in New York. Her language is--it's certainly--I know she's French-speaking. I think she's fluent in Yiddish--I'm not sure about that--and German.

Her English was minimal when she got here. She has a masters, I think, in something like social welfare. She came aboard because she was associated with John Tanton in FAIR--Federation for American Immigration Reform. They both did volunteer work and then went on the payroll. When Don Hayakawa established U.S. English, Tanton also was one of the really--oh, you almost as soon would call him "co-founder." Then Gerda came aboard as a director, and then became the paid executive director.

Leo Sorensen came aboard with me. He lives in Oakland and was interested in the issue. Of course, he also knew Don. I think he came aboard partly because we asked him to. He was

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born in Denmark. He's remained a director ever since. He was retired from the telephone company. He did public relations, PR, and communications for them at a relatively high level.

Shearer

Was he a Danish speaker?

Diamond

Yes. His language is Danish, yes. He had to learn English. He did; he went to school. He is naturalized and all that. Tanton, you probably know. He resigned. He was our chairman. Do you want his background?

Shearer

Yes. I was going to ask you a little bit about him.

Diamond

He's an ophthalmologist in Michigan. He's a visionary, an extremely interesting guy, Julie. He takes a great worldwide, planetwide overview, seeing population increase as being a major cause of some of our world problems, and increasingly so, as we look out at what's going to happen to the world population and resources. I think that's what kind of moved him into environmental work. He had about six or seven organizations he founded and supported: Planned Parenthood, Zero Population, various environmental groups, even one just saving some kind of an eagle. He was such a strong environmentalist. He and his wife, a marvelous woman. Tanton also founded FAIR, and then was our chairman. He claims a very special cultural interest, I think, in Germany and speaks some, I think. I'm not sure.

Hugh Graham is a history prof at the University of Maryland. He is a prolific writer, too. He is the brother of CBS's Graham--I forgot which one. John recommended him, and he's joined us. He's very good. He's since left--a heart attack reduced his activity.

And Gloria's marvelous, too. She's a sixth-grade teacher. She's a member of the Board of Education in its Tustin School District. She also has two federal appointments on different commissions associated with education.

John Tanton and the Federation for American Immigration Reform

Shearer

Going back to John Tanton for a moment--can you tell me what FAIR stands for?

Diamond

Yes. Federation for American Immigration Reform.

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Shearer

Okay, and, in just a sentence, what direction would the reform take?

Diamond

I think it's very simple: control of immigration. That's their goal.

Shearer

Just total shutting down, or reducing?

Diamond

No, control--controlling what comes into this country. I must say, I don't want that organization to have anything to do with U.S. English. I'm not a member, and I don't want us confused with them. I don't want to participate in any way with what they do. I don't want to be related in any way with the whole immigration issue. I separate from many others on this, but as long as I'm chairman of this board, we will not do it. They can always kick me out and then do anything they want to.

Shearer

Well, I gather that this is a little bit of a touchy issue, what with the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and so I was going to ask a question about John. I know that he came under fire for having commented on birthrate, and so forth, in Hispanic populations.

Diamond

That's true. It was terribly dramatic, and it couldn't have happened at a worse time, Julie. We were involved in three initiative campaigns: Arizona, Colorado, and Florida. I got the name of Jim Crawford, who was a character assassin. He's a puppet writer for the Bilingual Education Lobby and what's called CABE and NABE. NABE is National Association of Bilingual Educators. CABE is the California Association of Bilingual Educators. That whole group--supporters of bilingual education.

Someone got confidential information on one of John's memoranda. I don't know how he got it. It was an informal memorandum that Tanton prepared. It was to be presented for discussion at one of Tanton's think tanks. I never heard of this outfit; it was called WITANS. I've forgotten. The word comes from British feudal times, medieval times.

Shearer

What is it again?

Diamond

W-I-T-A-N-S, where there would be a group of nobles, or certain of the elite--where they would get together and discuss problems that they were mutually having, whether it would be land, or politics, serfs, whatever. I don't know where John got the name or whether it's his, but he did. He has a group of ten, twelve, fourteen people who meet periodically. I don't even know who the hell they are, Julie, but he prepared this memorandum based

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on immigration and other areas for discussion: what's going to happen by the year 2050 if they haven't controlled immigration? Many immigrants are Roman Catholic. If they produce more kids than the others, will they take over the schools? Will we have other languages and other cultures? What would be the impact?

So Crawford--if you're on the other side, and that's what you want to do, you do what he did. He said, "I am quoting from Dr. John Tanton, Chairman of the Board of U.S. English," and he drags out the quotes: "The immigrants coming in are Catholic. They have high birth rates," and then he really nailed himself. You'll like this for a beauty. He said, "Well, the pants down win over the pants up"--the "pants down" being the high birth rates. Of course, it's a beauty for a writer, isn't it?

Shearer

I can see why that caused a flap.

Diamond

"If I am called a racist once or twice a week, I'm having a dull week." And John was labeled a racist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Hispanic. It was extremely serious. His comment that "pants down-pants up" sterilization would be necessary was interpreted as anti-Catholic, anti-Hispanic. There was a lot of internal yak about should he have resigned or not. Some said, "No, tough it out. Tough it out."

Shearer

But he did choose to resign.

Diamond

He chose to resign. If he didn't, I would have. I wouldn't stay. It was very, very serious. Linda Chavez, our president at the time--she reacted immediately and resigned. She said, "I can't live with this in my career." She is Hispanic; her name is Linda Chavez. She's married to a guy named Gerson. Linda--her father was Mexican, her mother is Irish--is the best thing that happened to us. An extraordinary, extraordinary woman--marvelous president.

Shearer

So her departure was a real loss.

Diamond

Oh, to me, devastating. Devastating. I worked with her every day. She was so special. See, for us, for U.S. English, how can you get anybody better? She's articulate, has a superb background, is university trained. She has a master's in English literature and worked on a Ph.D. She had been in the White House--personnel director, I believe, and was executive director of the Civil Rights Commission. She was with AFT--American Federation of Teachers--as editor. She was a senatorial candidate from Maryland, and an excellent writer and debater. Linda became a television personality much in demand throughout the country.

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She was a dream. That Hispanic name. She was always Linda Chavez. Superb speaker. Very attractive. She had it all, Julie.

Shearer

I can see that that would be devastating to lose her.

Membership of U.S. English

Shearer

How about numbers of members?

Diamond

We have 400,000 members. That's the figure we use.

Shearer

What does it mean to be a member?

Diamond

Twenty dollars a year.

Shearer

Is that the sole source of your financial support?

Diamond

Well, you may be a member at twenty dollars a year, but you're going to get a lot of special appeals, too. We do have one-thousand-dollar contributors, five-thousand-dollar contributors, and twenty-five-thousand-dollar contributors. We have one-dollar-bill contributors, also.

Shearer

How would you characterize your members--I mean, ethnically, socioeconomic status, and so forth?

Diamond

Yes. They're certainly not poverty level. I'm guessing at this, but I'd say mostly thirty thousand dollars and above income and, I'd say, generally over forty years in age, if I had to make a judgement. Our profile would be mid-America, if that means anything, in terms of income, stable families--many, many retired. I'd say the over-forty. Of course, we're going to have plenty of mid-eighties, also.

Shearer

And racially?

Diamond

Racially, of course, they're going to be Anglo types, although many, many would say, "My father was born in Czechoslovakia, Greece, Finland,...The first thing they did when they came was learn English, and that's what I had to do, and my father said, You want to be a good American." That's a stereotype of our membership--first and second generations.

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Shearer

So, direct experience with having to learn English as a non-native--

Diamond

Yes, or being told about it by their parents. Yes. That's an accurate generalization.

Hayakawa's Role in U.S. English

Shearer

What has Don's role been in this organization?

Diamond

He's our honorary chairman. Early, in '83, he was very active for us. We would ask him to speak--for speaking dates, radio, TV, and everything. His is the most powerful name we have. He is the reason we function, Julie. He is the reason we get funded. It's because of the Hayakawa name. He is everything in this organization. All of our fundraising letters are signed by him. Political campaigns--he was out front until--the last two years, we haven't asked him to do very much. He wrote a lot for us. The real power, Julie, was the magic of that name. Somebody would ask, "Well, who is important in your organization?" All we would have to say is, "S.I. Hayakawa," ninety-nine times out of a hundred. His name is that well known in this country.

Shearer

Did you have any idea, when you were sitting at this table here, sorting through piles of mail in 1968, that that's where this would lead?

Diamond

I didn't think that much about it? I guess not. What I did sensitize to--oh, no, you're talking about the turbulence at San Francisco State. No, I don't think so.

Shearer

Did you see any political consequences in the stacks and stacks of mail?

Diamond

Yes, but not for a United States senator. I thought, Well, maybe he could become president of another university, like at San Francisco State college--maybe of another university that's much more prestigious, or a very, very high appointment in the federal government, a presidential appointment of some kind. I suppose that could have been a reality, but not as a United States Senator and certainly nothing like this U.S. English, either. Of course, I didn't associate myself with continuing with him other than a friend. I guess it didn't enter that importantly into the thinking about my own life. It was kind of an accident, as life is, frequently.

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Shearer

Had you been politically active before this?

Diamond

Yes, but not in an important way. I've always been interested. I would work in campaigns, where there would be a mayor's campaign, either of the supervisors--yes, supervisors, from time to time in San Francisco. I even thought very seriously of running once for supervisor--and did. I started to get signatures. I've always had that interest and worked in it, but not to the degree I do now, where it's become total and at very high levels.

Political Profile of U.S. English Members

Shearer

Is U.S. English, essentially, a Republican organization, or can you say that about it?

Diamond

We say, with 350,000 members, that we cover the political spectrum. We do, but, essentially, I would say, in a profile, we tend to be from the middle-of-the-road to the conservative. We do have some liberals, but there aren't many. Their thinking always interests me.

##

Shearer

I may not get to question you again. "As a liberal,..." you were saying?

Diamond

Yes, it's really interesting. I don't see why more liberals don't think this way. If I'm a liberal, my interest for immigrants coming into this country is to see that they're educated, to see that there are opportunities for them, see if they develop some political sense--as a liberal. It's that kind of a liberal who says, "Yes. You say the goal of U.S. English is to help immigrants get into the American mainstream, that English is a language of common discourse, so the more you can do to have them speaking English, the more opportunities they've got--sure, you guys are right." That's a proper liberal position. We have liberals who say that to explain why they're philosophically attached to us. But, of course, the rest of them say, "No, you're racist, and you're divisive. You're going to split the country, and you have no feeling for anybody else."

Shearer

What do you fear if the movement should grind to a halt?

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Diamond

I say this, and I mean it, that I think we are the only organization that's preventing disaster in education for immigrant children. By disaster I mean failing to take care of the Hispanic kids and to help them with assimilation and integration into our society and culture. I think we're the only ones standing for that. There is no other organization taking on powerful, powerful interests--really--in terms of money, in terms of numbers, in terms of having political strength in the state, in the federal government, in the bureaucracies. I don't want to sound sinister, but I believe that.

Shearer

It seems to me that the key to selling the U.S. English program is to ensure or reassure people that English as a Second Language, or programs to teach immigrant children, will really be in place. But I noticed that the U.S. English Newsletter proposes that it be done by private foundations or private groups. Why is this?

Diamond

I don't know if I follow you, Julie.

Shearer

Why should the task of educating immigrant children in English be undertaken privately by the Kiwanis Club or--

Diamond

No. That is a public responsibility.

Shearer

I don't know if I've misunderstood that. You think it should not be done privately?

Diamond

The teaching of English to immigrant children is a public responsibility. That is our position--unequivocally.

The Golden Door Program

Diamond

Now, I think you should know this, too, although it's an aside. We do have a very important project that we will expand as quickly as we can get money for it. It's called "Golden Door," and we have a program in southern California teaching English to immigrant adults. We contracted with a school, the Cambria Institute, and we've received from the Weingart Foundation, I think, $150,000 the last two or three years. U.S. English is picking up the tab for this Cambria Institute. We're paying for it.

I'm really excited about this. It's almost in a second year now, where teachers will go out to a job site: it could be

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the Julie Hospital, for example, where you have lots and lots of Hispanics working at many levels. Cambria Institute sends a teacher out there with the cooperation of the hospital, and either at lunchtime or after five, the teacher will conduct a class in English--videotapes, and helping. They're very, very moving experiences. Hispanics who work in the hospital will get English lessons. One I saw here--

Shearer

This is job-site language instruction.

Diamond

Job-site teaching. We also have cassettes and videotapes. Cassettes we give away, by the thousands, to United Way agencies, churches--we have them in Spanish, but I think we're going to get them in Korean, too.

Shearer

Now, why are the tapes in Spanish? Oh, well, I suppose they have to be partly in the language of the student.

Diamond

Oh, yes. Right now, ours are only in Spanish. The Cambria Institute has other languages. It's Spanish that's important. We work very closely with the director there. It's a beautiful project.

Shearer

And this is merely for adults?

Diamond

Yes, it's only for adults.

We also received a $150,000 grant from Charles Luebenein in Southern California for an educational project. All students not proficient in English would be required to have instruction in only English for one year. This program is in process, and it may become a multi-million dollar project for U.S. English.

Future Plans for U.S. English

Shearer

So what do you see ahead for U.S. English?

Diamond

Of course, I'd like a number of other states to join us. We're working at that. Missouri, Alabama, Idaho, Montana--we have ongoing things. When we get up to around twenty, twenty-five states, Congress is going to take us a good deal more seriously than it does now. We also want heavier inroads. We want changes in bilingual education laws at the federal level and at the state level. We've been really quite successful. I think we have played a role. We got a veto on the last bill, when it came up for renewal in 1988. Also, bilingual education--that is

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going in to interim committee. We testified in opposition to it. They wouldn't even vote on it, so we're beginning to show our strength here and there.

Shearer

Who was receptive to you in Congress?

Diamond

Norman Shumway in the House, of Stockton. On his English as a constitutional amendment, he has forty-six co-signers. They'll get a lot more. I think it will probably go up to a hundred. In the Senate, it's Senator Sam McClure. I think there are about eight others. We'll be able to generate strength there, too.

[As of July 1991, seventy-nine congressmen and congresswomen, as well as twelve senators, support our legislation.--S.D.]

Aside from this, what's very important to me is a secure base of funding. I don't like the idea of direct mail and having to depend on sending out six or eight million pieces a year and surviving on that. I want very important and very heavy sponsorship. We have a six-million-dollar-a-year budget now. It's pretty good. I would like to have that doubled, but I want it from major contributors, in thousand-dollar contributions, right up to hundred-thousand-dollar contributions.

Shearer

That's a whole different level of fundraising.

Diamond

Yes. That's what I want. We will be working in that direction.

Shearer

You seem to have a relatively small working board.

Diamond

You're absolutely right, and we're terribly concerned about that. We desperately want new board members. We want an expanded board, but we want to be extremely selective about our size now, and our goals. We have relative stability--relative. We would like a president such as Linda Chavez. [chuckles]

Shearer

Yes, I was just thinking--a clone.

Diamond

If there were one, and a strong board of the elite in the academic and professional, financial world-whatever that means. So we have a lot to do ahead. Where we are, we're solvent, and we're strong. But I don't know; I'm very unhappy about where we are, in terms of where we should be--in terms of organization.

Shearer

Your next cluster of states will be Alabama and--

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Diamond

Alabama has passed through its legislature a constitutional amendment for the voters, so it goes on their 1990 ballot. Missouri almost surely will get through for the same thing, through the legislature. I'm working on Montana. The legislature only meets every two years, so it doesn't meet until 1991. We will be in the legislature in 1991 in Montana, possibly--I haven't checked that carefully enough--Idaho, too. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are also on our list. That's enough for two years.

Shearer

Yes. That's a substantial amount of work.

Diamond

Well, Alabama's all done. Missouri's just about done. Montana, I have a very clear idea of what we should do, so not that much. You see, they're not initiatives. It isn't that we're getting out on the streets.

Shearer

It's not going out and circulating petitions.

Diamond

No.

Shearer

I see. You're just working on the legislature.

Diamond

Yes, exactly, and that's fairly easy.

Shearer

Where do you expect your problems will be--the tough ones?

Diamond

The continuous struggle with the Bilingual Education Lobby remains. We desperately want to eliminate ballots in any other than English. Those are legal problems. For example, the attorney general in California, in an informal opinion, said, "Ballots in other languages are permissible." He uses the word "permissible." We don't want to invest five hundred thousand dollars in a suit. It's chancey. We're cautious about that one, but that one interests me personally. I would like to have all these resolved in the next few years.

The Golden Door educational program, for instance, is critically important for adults. We want to get that going in Washington, D.C.--I had hoped this year, but this is almost July, so I don't know if we will. We would like to have similar programs in Arizona and Washington, D.C. We want the teaching-English-to-adults program--Washington, D.C. as a pilot program for all of Congress to see. The educational area--that's where we're reaching. Politically, we do have our own people, now, working the Congress in Washington.

Shearer

Your particular responsibility is here at the California legislature?

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Diamond

Yes, that's mine personally. I've spent three years at it, and it takes time, Julie. I don't know if you know the political process, but you have--it's not a secret word. The word is "access." If I come to Senator Julie, Senator Julie won't bother about me unless I have two things: I've got to represent a constituency that has some numbers, or I had better be a substantial contributor to Senator Julie's campaigns, or both. We're not contributors, although I am, personally, but we have a hundred and sixty thousand members here, and we won an election with 73 percent. So that speaks.

Shearer

That speaks loud and clear, I would think.

Diamond

I'm trying to be helpful with your exploring those days with Hayakawa. I don't know whether I was helpful. I hope I was a little bit, at least.

Political Impact of the Sound Truck Incident

Shearer

Just one more comment on the impact of Senator Hayakawa's--then Professor Hayakawa's--moment on the sound truck and the influence of that moment on his political career.

[pause in tape]

Diamond

Yes, if that's what we're talking about, that's one of the most dramatic moments in all his life--certainly mine. These accidents of time, circumstance, where he is on a truck, and in the midst of all this turbulence, which is beginning to get some space in the news, and the tam-o'-shanter is critical. Of course, as we were talking about earlier, the TV cameras and the photographers were there. That catapulted him into the United States Senate, making the name Hayakawa internationally known and respected. That did it.

Shearer

When did you see that this was going to happen, politically?

Diamond

Oh, the minute I saw that picture. If you're politically sensitive, you say, "Where do we go from here? The future is whatever you want."

Shearer

Were you close during the time that he reassessed his political orientation and changed his registration?

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Diamond

No, I wasn't in that little group. I just wasn't almost until the time he announced, and then I wanted to do whatever I could, too. The things I don't remember very clearly is--of course, I remember Tunney was the opponent who had all kinds of weaknesses. But there were a number of things that happened before Hayakawa--I guess he ran in the primary. I don't even remember his opponent in the primary. Once he was a candidate, we thought he had a very, very good shot, because Tunney was so weak, and the press was filled with his spending no time in the Congress. He had no time in the Senate; he wasn't voting. He was playing off in Switzerland--all the ski trips and the partying. So he was a vulnerable candidate.

Shearer

Did you participate in the campaign?

Diamond

I wasn't part of the campaign committee, but I was with a volunteer group in northern California. But I wasn't on the inner circle, no.

Joining Hayakawa's Political Staff, 1984

Shearer

When did you come on board as staff?

Diamond

I had retired from the state. Other things happened. We didn't know whether to move. We thought of moving back down to Argentina or moving to Paris. I guess he [Hayakawa] was in the Senate for a little while--six or seven months. [pause]

I know what it was. I asked him to get the son of a friend of ours into West Point. He called me and said, "Well, hell, that's no problem." And then he said, "What are you doing?" I said, "You know, just fooling around. We're deciding where to go and live." He said, "Why don't you come aboard? Go up and see somebody in the San Francisco office and look around--see if there's something you want to do up there." I've been there ever since. I'm glad I did, too. It has been a fascinating experience, and I've been there, I think, almost five and a half years.

Shearer

Really? Oh, so you saw the whole--

Diamond

Yes. Julie, I keep saying this: we can sit on the outside, read all the papers in the world, and discuss all kinds of things with politicians and a lot of other stuff, but you would never really understand how that system works and even why it doesn't work, unless you're inside a political office. By that I mean

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you see the great interests, the trade-offs, you see where the deals have to be made in terms of friends and non-friends, obligations you have, the credits you build--that's the real politics. I always thought I knew a little bit about what was going on, but I didn't. I didn't.

Shearer

And I wonder, how can you develop that web of connections and the infrastructure of associations and favors in one term?

Diamond

You can't, and you don't. He's not the kind of personality--because of his age, too, at that time--that can work at that. You have to continually maintain a huge communication and be aware of all the legislation that is going through, not in detail--you have a huge staff to take care of that--but all the implications, with your constituents, powerful lobbies, all your colleagues on the floor, your relationship with the administration--

Shearer

Yes, and all your colleagues' relations with the lobbyists and their constituents.

Diamond

A million variables--a million variables. You're quite right. As a junior senator, it's difficult to accomplish very much.

Now, he was very lucky. The time he was in--the Republicans were in control of the Senate, so he had a couple of excellent committee assignments, in agriculture, for example, which is California, and foreign relations--beautiful, with the Republicans having committee control. After that, the Republicans have not been in control, so they're kind of minor players. While Don was in, it was great. He was an international power--not national, international, because a California Senator does have that. He's powerful.

Shearer

Thank you. Is there anything else that you would care to say?

Diamond

I think I've pretty much filled you in on U.S. English, which is what I'm kind of living with these days. That's uppermost. I hope I gave you some kind of a picture of where that is, Julie. We might kick that around at another session, if that's of any interest. Obviously, you're aware of, too, what goes on in the inner world--of whether it's the Senate or the House or California legislature. They're very similar. The same forces are at work there--special interests, lobbies, constituents, contributors.

Shearer

Writ large, and also writ fine--it's just extremely complicated.

---

Diamond

Or unwritten. Most of it is. I just came back from a three-day seminar in Washington called "Campaigns and Elections." They had some of the very good people--for example, Lee Atwater and John Buckley--at most levels, with politics, polling, and a lot of other stuff--media, TV. I think this was the third one I've been to. I don't know why I go. [chuckles]

But guys at the level of Atwater and Buckley--campaign management at the highest levels--almost inevitably say, "You're doing all these things we think will help you win, and it's very important to know them, but don't ever forget campaign consultants and winning elections is an art form." Now I believe that.

I know when I say this, but I think of it in retrospect, that that's why we hit a biggie in Prop. 63. We didn't have a poll. We didn't have any advertising. Everybody hated us, but we did some things right.

Shearer

But you must have had a sense that--

Diamond

Yes, it was instinct. I think so. I think so.

Shearer

You had grabbed the attention--

Diamond

Oh, that I knew. Because we didn't have any money, and I didn't want to spend it anyway--I didn't. I refused to spend anything on advertising. I refused to have a poll, and I refused to have any paid staff.

Shearer

How did you do it?

Diamond

Well, I shouldn't say any paid staff because we had about one and a half. We had superb volunteer speakers in southern California, and all I said to our own people, "We will seek and will never refuse any public appearance, whether two people, or three-whether it's a radio station in Eureka with two hundred listeners or two million out of LA." As far as I know, we never refused anything.

Shearer

Well, that must take money. It certainly takes time.

Diamond

No. It takes time; it doesn't take any money. You drive somewhere. It's all-consuming. But you know, Julie, the excitement--the adrenaline flows every day.

Shearer

Thank you again.

S. I. Hayakawa and Elvira J. Orly

RECALLING SENATE ISSUES

Interview Conducted by Julie Gordon Shearer in 1989

Interview History--by Julie Gordon Shearer

Elvira J. Orly served as legislative director during the first three years of S. I. Hayakawa's Senate term (1977-1983). Stanley Diamond's recommendation that she be interviewed along with Hayakawa was heartily seconded by Hayakawa, whose affection and respect for her are clearly evident in the interview that follows.

At the time of the interviews (summer 1989), Ms. Orly was working in Washington, D.C., as director of federal relations and Washington counsel for Browning-Ferris Industries. We were fortunate to set up an interview time to coincide with her visit to her parents in Berkeley, California, for the 4th of July.

The interview took place on July 5 at the Hayakawa home in Mill Valley. The recording exceeded the normal interview length, going nearly four hours in an attempt to cover as much as possible during this brief window in Ms. Orly's busy schedule in Washington. Orly, who is a former fencing partner of Hayakawa, moves with the grace associated with the sport. Her simply coiffed, honey-colored hair and neat figure suggest attention to fitness.

The interview questions aimed to sketch a picture of the senator's Washington office, how it was staffed and operated, how the freshman senator was received (who was helpful, who was influential), and to recapture Hayakawa's thinking behind the sometimes startling positions he took on various issues.

Hayakawa clearly recalled some experiences that informed his opposition to reparations for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. Ms. Orly was able to supply the vital context to stimulate Hayakawa's recall of his thinking on other issues--notably, abortion and minimum wage.

The interview was edited to highlight the issues that Hayakawa and Orly were able to remember. Clearly our discussion did not begin to exhaust the subject of Hayakawa's Senate activities. Although his memory of those years has faded, the interview is revealing of some essential themes--his belief in the value of mainstreaming ethnic minorities, his insistence on looking at the person beneath the "label" (even Jesse Helms), his surprisingly generous view of his critics in the press, and his irrepressible wit.

Marge and Don wished to review this interview before it was sent to Ms. Orly. Coming last in the series conducted while Don was still alive, this put it at the end of a lengthy process of editing by conference with the interviewer, as described earlier in the Hayakawas' interview history. This delayed transmittal to Ms. Orly until winter of 1991. Over the next two and one-half years attempts were made to connect the transcript with its author--in Washington, in Brussels, Belgium, and Arlington, Virginia. All were unsuccessful. Happily, the interviewer reached her in July of 1993 when she was visiting in Berkeley for a long weekend. She clarified portions of the transcript, answered the interviewer's remaining queries, and returned the transcript August 9, 1993.

To round out the picture of the latter part of Hayakawa's Senate term (and keep within the project's budget), we invited his son Alan, who joined the senator's Washington staff in 1981, to contribute his recollections of the Senate issues that engaged his father. The memorial essay he contributed to the volume does not attempt political analysis, but it touches on the motives that may well have influenced Hayakawa's decision to retire after one term.

October 1994

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

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XIII Recalling Senate Issues

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##

Meeting at the Pannonia Athletic Club, 1964

Shearer

This interview is with both Senator Hayakawa and his Washington legislative director, Elvira Orly. I'm just going to jump and ask Ms. Orly how long you've known Senator Hayakawa.

Orly

Well, I think Senator Hayakawa and I first met probably back in 1967, when we both fenced at the Pannonia Athletic Club in San Francisco.

Hayakawa

Fencing club. That's how I got mixed up with all these Hungarians. [chuckles]

Shearer

I see. This is a Hungarian fencing club?

Orly

No. But the club was originally started by members of the defecting 1956 Hungarian Fencing Team.

Shearer

Thinking back to that time, how did you actually meet? Were you fencing partners? Were you opponents?

Hayakawa

Well, if you're in a fencing club, everybody's both a partner and an opponent at different times.

Orly

Don tells a wonderful story--of course, when I started fencing, Don had been fencing longer than I had and beat me all the time. Then, as I fenced more, I got better, and eventually I got to the point where I could beat him, and he kids that that's when he quit. He really is only kidding about that. I did go on to be a fencer on the USA fencing team.

Shearer

So you fenced together what--some years?

---

Orly

Well, from '67 until--it's not clear to me.

Hayakawa

Is it by the time I became president of San Francisco State?

Orly

Oh, you were still fencing then. You continued fencing after that. I just don't remember. You know, fencing is one of those sports that you don't really officially stop--you just find that there are so many other things in your life that you get to the club less and less often.

Political Views

Shearer

So in the course of that association, [to Orly] you became acquainted with his views?

Orly

There was a period of several years where we fenced together at the club, and, as I said, it gave us a chance to talk, just to get to know each other.

Shearer

Were you acquainted with the senator's work in semantics? Did you also have a connection with San Francisco State?

Orly

Not really. I knew of his books, of course, but [to Hayakawa] I never took a class from you. I never attended San Francisco State. I attended Cal Berkeley. I was a freshman in college when we met.

Shearer

I see. So it was--

Hayakawa

She was very naive and could be taken advantage of. [laughter]

Orly

A very strict, strait-laced Hungarian upbringing.

Shearer

So your friendship spanned the time of the San Francisco State protests and some of the civil rights activities of the sixties.

Did you talk about politics much? Do you remember?

Hayakawa

No, I don't think we did very much.

Orly

Not so much about politics. I think we probably talked about issues more than politics. I remember when you changed from being a Democrat to a Republican, and that was probably one of the few times we really talked about politics.

---

Hayakawa

I got disillusioned with many important Democrats in office or running for office and went over to the Republican party.

Orly

Yes. Remember, you got disillusioned when you saw so many of the city fathers involved in the [San Francisco State] protest on the picket line.

Shearer

Thinking back to an earlier interview on the San Francisco State protests, Senator Hayakawa, you were describing the role of the Burton brothers--their role in the protests on campus.

Hayakawa

Yes, they supported the student strike.

Shearer

Yes, and I think you cited that as a formative factor in your decision to join the Republican party. [to Orly] What do you remember of those discussion? Was this an agonizing decision, as you recall?

Orly

Decision to change registration?

Shearer

Yes. Was this something that you talked about?

Orly

No. [to Hayakawa] I remember when you came into the club [chuckles] and said that you changed parties.

Hayakawa

Did I announce it at the club?

Orly

Well, you mentioned it to me at the club. It was a normal thing that came up in conversation. It wasn't anything that had come up before--about officially changing parties--but I do remember, just as you were saying earlier, you had become disillusioned with some of the leading Democrats in town.

Shearer

[to Orly] What is your political background--experience?

Orly

Well, my parents were--I guess when I was growing up I can remember they supported Adlai Stevenson in that election. I believe they might have been--they were--registered Democrats, but they were not politically active. I would describe them as very conservative, and so I always viewed myself as a Republican. When I was old enough to register, I registered Republican. I think, at that time, my parents were still registered Democrats. They eventually changed their registration to Republican.

Shearer

At that point, had you and the senator discussed any political future for him as a result of the deluge of letters of support from all over California?

---

Orly

Yes, but at that time, we weren't thinking politics. The discussion centered on what was going on at the school and doing what was the right thing right there at the school. National politics never entered the picture at that time, nor did local politics other than the irritation at the way some of the local politicians had supported the students.

Joining the Senator's Washington Staff

Shearer

At what point were you in your professional career when Senator Hayakawa asked you to join his campaign staff?

Orly

I was practicing law as a tax lawyer at a downtown firm.

Shearer

This was after preparation where?

Orly

Well, I had gone to University of California as an undergrad from '66 to '70. It was all during that time that we were fencing at that club. Then I worked for a year. Then I entered the four-year combined JD-MBA program at Cal Berkeley, finishing up in '75. So it was in '76 [to Hayakawa] that you asked me to serve on the steering committee which ran the campaign.

Shearer

By that time, what political activity had you--

Orly

Myself? None. I remember one of the things that came up then. You asked me to go on the steering committee, because you wanted somebody on there to sort of watch out for your interests, somebody who knew you and was not politically active, because there were other people on the steering committee that were involved in politics and had been in the past. There was a mixture of people who knew you [Hayakawa] and then people who also knew you but had been involved in politics.

Shearer

Who were some of the other people on the steering committee at that point?

Orly

Gene [Eugene] Pratt, and I remember there was a man who served as treasurer. He lived down the Peninsula. I don't remember his name right now.

Shearer

Were there any pros on the committee?

Orly

[murmuring assent] I don't know if they were on the committee, but you [Hayakawa] had hired somebody--

---

Hayakawa

Woodward and McDowell.

Orly

No, they came afterward. I think, first--didn't you hire Black? Spencer Black? There was somebody that was involved--a political consultant, who if I remember correctly, had personal problems and decided not to continue in politics.

Shearer

Did this leave a hole in your committee which you felt you needed to fill with another pro?

Orly

No, Woodward and McDowell filled that. They came in after.

Shearer

And who were Woodward and McDowell? People you knew?

Hayakawa

They're professionals at managing and pushing campaigns. I think they're still in the phone book.

Shearer

I see, okay. So it was a relatively small committee--just, essentially, the four of you, or the five, I guess?

Hayakawa

Woodward and McDowell was a firm with two partners, and I don't know how many on staff they had, but not a hell of a lot. They did an awful lot of work, on the basis of the fact that they've done this before. They knew the ropes within the Republican party. Or they said they did. [chuckles] I never quarreled with them because I got elected. [laughter]

Orly

What is it, "Success has a thousand fathers"?

Shearer

[to Orly] Why did you accept the senator's offer of a staff position?

Orly

Oh, that was after he won the election. First I was on the steering committee.

Shearer

Why did you accept that?

Hayakawa

Because we were buddies a long time.

Orly

He asked. I think he wanted me on there, basically, to--he said, to watch out for his interests. Everyone knew there would be political strategizing. That's the whole purpose of a committee, but I think he wanted someone there who knew him, if not from the issue standpoint but almost from making sure that the things that came up were, sort of, reflective of his views.

Hayakawa

The important thing is that all the political people I worked with were new friends and, therefore, more or less, strangers. I wanted someone with me who had known me from way back.

---

Orly

I knew how Don thought about lots of things, because we did a lot of talking over a lot of years. I mean, we're talking about from '67 to '76. That's nine years.

Shearer

That's a long time, yes. What about Gene Pratt? How long have you known him?

Hayakawa

That went back to the period when I was president of San Francisco State. We're still in touch with each other but not very much anymore. He's got other fish to fry in politics.

Shearer

So his interest was in politics as well as being a longtime associate of yours?

Orly

I think he worked at San Francisco State. Isn't that where you first met him?

Hayakawa

Yes, he had some kind of administrative job at San Francisco State.

Orly

What year did you become president?

Hayakawa

In '68. I was the third president in 1968. There was Summerskill, and there was Bob Smith, and me.

Orly

Because I knew you before you were president of San Francisco State. What is it? "I knew him when..." [laughter]

Shearer

What role did Stanley Diamond play, if any, at that time?

Hayakawa

He had none at all at that time.

Shearer

None during the primary. When you were in the primary, Bob Finch was among the Republican candidates.

Orly

He was the one that most people thought was going to win.

Campaign Issues and Strategies

Shearer

Was your campaign geared to winning over Bob Finch--he being, apparently, the front runner?

Orly

Finch had been active in Republican politics for many, many years and held appointive office.

---

Shearer

He was, actually, the former lieutenant governor, and then he went to HEW--served as secretary back in Washington.

Orly

So he had a lot of Republican credentials, and he had been in politics for many years. A lot of people assumed that he would win the primary--certainly, early on. But our campaign was not geared toward focusing on Finch. It was a positive campaign to promote Hayakawa, and the name recognition, I think, played very well into that. I don't think you spent any time talking about Finch. You spent all your time talking about what you could do for the state and the people. It was a very positive campaign in terms of the Republican primary.

Hayakawa

You see, what really made me a pretty good candidate for senator is that I had really dramatic confrontations with radical students at San Francisco State. [chuckles] I was on television many times for that reason. They were trying to shut down the college, and I was determined to keep it open. There was a real deep, several hundred-year-old prejudice against calling police or the military onto a university campus. Well, they were creating enough problems. I decided, "To hell with that taboo. I'm going to call the cops when they're necessary." I violated several hundred years of academic tradition by calling in the cops, and a whole bunch of them. It was very popular with everybody except some academics.

Shearer

So name recognition as expressed in the thousands of letters that you received in support of the action in 1968.

Apparently, it carried over for a long time--eight years.

Hayakawa

It really did.

Orly

Oh, I think so, because in addition to the letters, he had been on the television so much during that tumultuous period. People remembered the name and what it stood for. It wasn't just the name. It was the--

Hayakawa

You see, I was also mixed up in sufficient dramatic confrontations in front of television cameras. I didn't plan it quite that way, but that's the way it worked out.

Shearer

After you won the primary, what issues in the campaign did you settle on?

Orly

Well, I can remember a couple of things. [John] Tunney did not have the best attendance record, and so that was the focus of one ad.

---

Hayakawa

Yes, he was a playboy.

Orly

He had been Ted Kennedy's roommate.

Hayakawa

He was skiing in Switzerland, and I don't know why he was a senator. He wasn't doing much work as a servant of the people. He was having a damn good time skiing in Switzerland.

Orly

Yes, so I can remember one of the ads. It talked about an issue that was voted on on the floor of the Senate, and where was Tunney? Well, there was a picture of him skiing in Switzerland.

Hayakawa

[chuckles] That was real dirty.

Orly

That was one thing that I do remember. Then I remember another advertisement. This was the windshield-washer ad. Do you remember that ad? Instead of the window getting cleaner, it would get dirtier. [laughter]

Hayakawa

We would just take a picture of the windshield, cleaning the window, see? Then reverse the film to--back and forth, and the window became more and more murky.

Orly

This was to focus on how Tunney flip-flopped on issues, and so instead of anything getting clearer, it got muddier. In the end of the ad, a bucket of water was tossed on the window, and, of course, it cleared it, and then you saw a picture of Hayakawa. They had very good, creative ads.

Shearer

Who is the "they" in this case? Now that you had the Republicans fully behind you?

Orly

Yes, but see, we didn't have much money.

Hayakawa

Was it Woodward and McDowell?

Orly

Woodward and McDowell, and I remember that the--

Hayakawa

There was another guy involved, too, a sort of a lone-wolf-type political consultant. I've forgotten his name.

Orly

I don't remember, but I know that the campaign ads had to be done on a very small budget, because we came through the primary, and since most people thought that Finch was going to win, there wasn't a lot of money donated to Hayakawa in the primary. Besides, primary money is always hard to raise. I remember that the ads were done on a very small budget, because we just didn't have a lot of funds.

---

Shearer

Oh, that's right. You had just a relatively short period to raise money between the primary in June and the general election in November.

Do you feel the party was with you during that period? Or were there Republicans whose allegiance was really to Finch and who did not support you sufficiently?

Hayakawa

I had my supporters. I had a nice campaign. I didn't ever worry about Finch or who supported him.

Shearer

[to Orly] How about your recollection?

##

Orly

The traditional Republican hierarchy supported Finch in the primary, which, of course, made sense. It was the normal, natural thing. He had been involved in the party, had held various positions, as we talked earlier. But after the primary, when Don won, the party closed ranks. There was no division or friction--none that I was aware of.

Shearer

So an appropriate amount of money came through to back that up?

Orly

Well, I'm not sure the money came from the party, per se, but once you have a candidate who has won a primary, then people are usually more willing to help support. A lot of people just don't like to give in primaries. They want to wait for the real race.

Hayakawa

I think that my record at San Francisco State had to do with the public support the first time I ran for office, because, you know, we had had an awful long period of student strikes and faculty dissidence and so on before I became president at San Francisco State. I can go downstairs and bring up a big carton like this [gesturing] full of letters supporting my ideas at San Francisco State.

Shearer

Yes, I've seen some of those cartons. It's remarkable.

Hayakawa

They have three more boxes of them [chuckles] at the library at San Francisco State. So many wonderful letters--some of them very short, like "Hang in there, Doc!" [laughs], others quite long and telling me what happened to them when they had gone to college.

---

Winning Election to the Senate

Shearer

There was a newspaper, or probably an editorial account, of the kind of campaign that you conducted, in which the writer expressed amazement that, at least for one distinct phase of the campaign, you traveled up and down the state in an RV--stopped only at small towns, where you addressed relatively small, friendly audiences, unlike the strategies of the other candidates, who concentrated as many potential supporters as possible in the urban areas. And yet you managed to swamp your opponent. You sort of "did everything wrong," so to speak. How did you pull it off?

Hayakawa

I don't remember thinking about it as a strategy.

Shearer

What's your recollection?

Orly

Well, in answer to "How did he win the election?"--I think several factors, but some that come to mind right now is the tremendous name recognition. The ads were good. They caught your attention.

A third factor tied in very importantly with the other two that I mentioned--Tom Hayden had run against Tunney in the Democratic primary, and it was a very divisive Democratic primary.

As a result, Tunney did not go into the final portion of that race, after he had won the primary, with a lot of strength. I mean, there's no question that some of the comments that Hayden made hurt Tunney politically. You had a Democratic candidate who had gone through a rather rigorous primary, faced with a Republican with tremendous name recognition. And Tunney did not believe that Don could win the election. No, that came out after you won in comments that came to me after we were in Washington. Some of the Democratic staffers and other people I had gotten to know--they said that Tunney was in shock, as was his staff.

Shearer

They hadn't taken account of his tremendous personal popularity?

Hayakawa

Apparently not.

Orly

They might have misgauged it. They might have been so busy--this is, of course, conjecture on my part, because I was not involved with the Democratic side. It's possible that they thought once they got through that really bruising primary, that it was behind them. I would say the Tom Hayden-John Tunney

---

primary was bloody, vicious, nasty. I mean, I'm not sure of the right words to describe it, but it was rough.

Shearer

It compromised Tunney's chances in the main race, you think?

Orly

I don't know if the word is "compromised." I think that it's possible that after he got through that, he relaxed, and he thought that, "Okay, I've got the primary behind me now. I'm done." Possibly. Of course, this is pure conjecture on my part.

Hayakawa

He didn't take into account the samurai factor. [laughter]

Orly

Part of the shock in Tunney's staff could be seen in what they did when we arrived. Don, I don't know if you remember this, but when we moved into the office space in Washington, we moved into the space--

Hayakawa

Oh, boy, I remember now, yes.

Orly

Well, we moved into the office space which Tunney--

Hayakawa

--had occupied. As I remember it, they left the place one hell of a mess, didn't they?

Orly

Yes, including excrement left on things--smeared all over things.

Shearer

In the office, not in the bathroom?

Orly

Not in the bathroom, in the office--on the typewriters and just--

Shearer

That's astonishing.

Orly

We were surprised.

Hayakawa

That's partisanship. [laughs]

Orly

But that, I think, shows the shock of the staff, and I'm not saying the whole staff. Heavens no. There were probably maybe one or two people who did this, and I think that was the response to something that they had not anticipated and couldn't fathom. Again, I'm just trying to psychologically read somebody else's mind. But that is what we found--quite a bit of it.

Hayakawa

That's called "dirty politics." [laughter]

Shearer

Yes.

---

Well, first of all, there was the question, now--you had signed on for the duration of the campaign; what about staying on?

Orly

Well, I continued to work at the law firm during the campaign.

Shearer

And then you won. Were you surprised at all, or did you expect to win?

Hayakawa

Well, let's put it this way: I didn't expect to lose.

Orly

I remember talking to you the night of the election returns. They were coming in, and this was very, very late. It was looking good, and you indicated that you had confidence that you were going to win.

Shearer

So there was that time of triumph, and then how soon after the election were you invited to come to Washington, to be staff?

Hayakawa

She just came along. [chuckles]

Orly

Oh, I think that you must have said something to me the following week.

Hayakawa

Of course. I wouldn't dream of going there without you.

Orly

I can remember sitting in this chair with boxes of résumés. You must have received two thousand résumés just within a week, of people looking to come to work for you in Washington. That was in addition to all of the just regular mail that came here. You went on the radio right after the election [chuckles], so people started to write before--that was in November. You don't really set up in Washington until after you're sworn in, in January. But we started getting mail immediately.

Hayakawa

Yes, amazing.

Shearer

When did you actually leave for Washington? In November?

Orly

No. You went back in November and looked for housing. I think Marge might have gone with you then. And then you went back again in December, because I know you bought a house either in November or December. I remember going back in December and noting how cold it was. There was snow on the ground. And then I moved back there, I guess, probably the end of that year or the beginning of January--probably for a January 1 lease. I know that the house that you purchased wasn't immediately ready, and so you took a two-bedroom apartment in an apartment building for a three-month lease. And Marge was back there a lot,

---

because she did a tremendous amount on putting the house together so it became a proper functioning house.

Shearer

This being the house, not the apartment.

Orly

Correct, but Don and Marge were living in the apartment on Southwest Fourth Street while working on the house.

Staffing and Structuring the Washington Office

Shearer

So in that three-month period, you were also trying to hire people, sifting through résumés--

Orly

Oh, we started hiring before then. When we went back there in December, that was one of the things Gene and I did. We interviewed a tremendous number of people, and made certain hiring decisions, and offered certain people positions, so that when the office opened in January, we already had some of the hiring done. Then, of course, we continued hiring.

Shearer

So, essentially, it was you and Gene Pratt who went to Washington, and then, from the two of you, you had a hiring period.

Orly

Well, there was another woman that went back--Trudy. She had worked in the campaign. But most of the people in the office were hired in Washington because we wanted to have people that had some Washington experience. I mean, there was a mixture. Frank Hill was hired, and he, I think, had been active in your campaign in southern California. He came back to Washington. Some of the people who had been active in the campaign in California remained in the California offices.

Shearer

Stanley Diamond--

Orly

He never worked for the senator in the Washington office. Later on, he went to work in one of the California offices. But Stanley had known you [Senator Hayakawa] for many, many, many years.

Shearer

He became, I thought, the Northern California Director.

Orly

That was later.

Shearer

Okay. So how did you set up the Washington office? What was the division of responsibilities?

---

Orly

Gene became the administrative assistant, and I became the legislative director. We worked closely together--very closely.

Shearer

[to Orly] This must have been a big change for you, because you hadn't done legislative advocacy before or legislative--

Orly

True. But I never doubted my ability to do it, and I attribute that to the way I was raised. I knew I was reasonably intelligent, and I figured that I could learn. I made sure I hired a secretary who had a lot of experience, had trained many people before her--Marcia Wright. She was very capable. She had worked in Roman Hruska's [R-Nebraska] office. She had been a secretary, and every time they brought in a new legislative assistant, she trained them. She trained the legislative director, and they never promoted her. So I recognized that she was a very talented, capable woman, and she came to work as my secretary--and, after three or four months, I promoted her to legislative aide, which was more in keeping with her experience and abilities. It was very helpful to me to have her working so closely with me for the first three months, because she could teach me some of the things that I needed to know.

Shearer

And so Gene Pratt was the administrative assistant?

Orly

Now, that title, "administrative assistant," is a title that is used in Washington. It's a senior position. That's just the way Washington names jobs. Administrative assistants are very senior jobs.

Shearer

Why were you the legislative director? Why did the office have that?

Orly

Well, we got all these résumés from people in Washington, and it was pretty easy to determine from what was written on their résumé how offices were structured. [chuckles] That was one way to tell, and then the Senatorial Committee provided guidance. I can remember talking to other people who had worked in Washington, and we worked out a structure. We also met with Roy Greenaway, who was Cranston's administrative assistant [AA]. He gave us a tour of their offices and how they were structured, so we had a lot of information to use, in deciding the structure for your office.

Shearer

What does it suggest when you have a legislative director rather than a legislative assistant?

Orly

Well, you always have legislative assistants. In some offices, there's a legislative director as well. Traditionally, in some offices, the administrative assistant either tries to do

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everything or just does the administrative side, and the legislative assistants report directly to the senator. It's just a decision on how you structure the office. This was a good decision for us, because I knew the senator. I knew how he thought about issues. People we hired as his legislative assistants didn't know him--didn't know his views--and, as a result, I was able to give them guidance.

Shearer

So you would have legislative assistants working in various policy areas, but then they could come to you rather than come directly to the senator.

Orly

Exactly, and the problem for all senators is no time. There are so many demands on their time.

Shearer

Yes. How much of each day do you have to spend on the Senate floor--a good part of the day?

Hayakawa

It's hard to make a generalization, because some days you would be on the floor an awful long time. Other times, you wouldn't have to go on the floor at all. There are times when the Senate is proceeding with anything from two to five or ten senators on the floor, although it's supposed to be a hundred, because some obscure piece of legislation that no one else is interested in is being debated on endlessly, because it applies to only one or two states, or one industry, or something like that.

Orly

A lot of the substantive work of the United States Senate goes on at the committee level.

Shearer

So once a bill is reported out of a committee favorably, and, presumably, somebody has done the legwork--I guess, the legislative--

Orly

--the legislative assistants--

Shearer

--find out where the votes are, then it just marches on through.

Orly

Well, sometimes the legislation is amended on the Senate floor.

Shearer

So the legislative assistants--was their job more research, and yours was--

Orly

Mine was management.

Shearer

Management of their efforts, and how about management of the legislation and--

Orly

All of it.

---

Shearer

So you talked to other senators, other senators' AAs, garnered support, or did the senator do this himself?

Hayakawa

Both. We both did some of this.

Senate Committee Assignments

Shearer

[to Hayakawa] Your committee assignments were in agriculture, foreign affairs, health and human resources, and budget. How did you end up on those committees, particularly agriculture? I mean, it's been a while since there was somebody from California on agriculture.

Orly

I can offer a few comments on this. You requested to go on the Agriculture Committee, because you felt it was tremendously important for the state of California to have representation on the committee. For years, the committee had been dominated by senators from the Midwest and the South, and their agricultural problems were not the same as California's agricultural problems--in terms of trade, as well as just the variety of the crops that are grown here.

The Senate Budget Committee was a committee that they put you on, without asking, and that's because senators serve on two major committees and one minor committee. Freshman senators are sort of spread around, where needed, to make sure that the numbers work right. So he requested agriculture and went on the Health and Human Resources Committee, which, again, made great sense because that's the committee that handles education. For the minor committee, they basically assigned Don to the Budget Committee.

Now, Don wrote an article that appeared in, I guess, Harpers, on the Budget Committee. It was wonderful. It was one of the best pieces. It was just so funny, because it was during the Carter administration. You said, "Well, you know, serving on the Budget Committee is not so tough. You don't even have to know how to subtract."

Shearer

I found that comment, actually, among your papers, and I think you went on to say that not only was it a case of adding, but that the numbers were somewhat simple. It was 1.2 or 3.4, and then there was just one word following, which was "billion." [laughter]

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What advantages did you bring to the Senate? What edge did you carry, and, by the same token, what disadvantage did you have to overcome when you arrived at the Senate?

Hayakawa

Well, you're tremendously good at scouting out everything. I think she [Shearer] should have gone into espionage. [laughter]

Shearer

Now, I know you brought a fantastic name recognition with you, and, apparently, a tremendous amount of mail followed you to the Senate. Now, did that translate into an advantage for you as Senator?

Hayakawa

Oh, I think so. [to Orly] Don't you?

Orly

Sure.

Hayakawa

Very much.

Orly

I think Don brought clear vision--a very succinct way of looking at problems and describing problems. Many politicians in Washington made that observation to me, Don, that you had such a clean way of analyzing a problem and talking about it.

Hayakawa

See, I was awfully smart.

Orly

Yes. That was noted also--very smart.

Shearer

I have a sense, and certainly not a fully-developed sense--Elvira would have a much better take on this, but my sense of running a Washington office, where you have a staff of, maybe, seventy, seventy-five people--

Orly

Well, that was all. That was including California.

Shearer

--that it's a tremendously complex and fast-moving environment, process, that there's a tremendous amount of reading to do, personally, as well as to direct your staff to get up to speed. And networks to develop, and power to assess, and so on, and so on, and so on.

How was it, to come into that environment at the age you were, and be a freshman, and have to land running?

Hayakawa

I will say one thing about this, is that the colleagues of your own party are always a great, great help, so that in committee, or over lunch, or at a cocktail party, or whatever, you're all standing with colleagues of your own party--they're very friendly to you, and they'll tell you things: "This is going to come up next Tuesday. You've got to watch for it," and "Some of

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the members of the Foreign Relations Committee or the Agriculture Committee are very interested in this part of the legislation, and if you want further explanation, you come to my office,--"

##

Shearer

You were saying you had a wonderful--

Hayakawa

Your colleagues from the same party are really friends. It seems to me no one from your own party ever tried to cut your throat. They cut other people's throats.

Shearer

[to Orly] What is your view of this? How did it seem to you as legislative director--being dropped into this milieu?

Orly

It was very busy. Very long hours. We would start early in the morning, and work all day, and work into the night. We would work weekends, too.

Hayakawa

It was the standard operating procedure. Even if you were out partying, you'd get into the discussion of political matters.

Orly

Well, a lot of the partying was receptions that staff was requested to attend, the senator was requested to attend.

Shearer

Information was exchanged, developed, ferreted out?

Orly

Oh, sure, always. It was to the extent you go to a reception, you're dealing with people that are in Washington because they're concerned about a given issue. They want to talk to the member or the staffer about that issue.

Political Issues, Political Style

Shearer

Senator Hayakawa has been described as a "maverick senator," as "unpredictable." Did you bring a political program with you? [to Orly] I know that you have always said that you understand how he thought. Would you characterize his approach as being a programmatic approach?

[pause]

Hayakawa

That's an awfully difficult question to answer, because things come at you in an unorganized fashion, where you're worried about agricultural exports at one time and the purely political

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problems within the Senate at another time, and so on and so on. They don't all mesh together, and, to an extraordinary extent, you're jumping around from subject to subject without knowing what's coming up next, much of the time. What is very nice in that situation is the party leadership. I found Senator Howard Baker, when he was the--what do you call the--

Orly

Minority leader.

Hayakawa

Minority leader, yes. Howard Baker was always very, very kind and thoughtful. He would keep us informed as to what the hell was coming up next, and Bob Dole was even better. He tried to keep the team together in presenting a united front whenever possible. He would discuss things with us. That leadership--both Howard Baker and Bob Dole were very good at that kind of thing, and so you thought you were a member of a team. You felt that you weren't sort of floundering around by yourself. You had people to turn to for advice.

Shearer

Some writers have looked at the record--of course, there was the benefit of hindsight, at least, after a certain point--and described your approach as one of "humane libertarianism."

Hayakawa

If they want to call me names, that's okay. [laughter]

Shearer

How does it strike you?

Orly

I had not heard that before.

Hayakawa

Neither have I.

Orly

I think that that would encompass some of the things that you did. It certainly wouldn't be a title that would cover a lot of the work you did in the foreign affairs area.

Shearer

By the way, did you request Foreign Affairs?

Hayakawa

Yes, very definitely.

Orly

I think you were interested in the Foreign Affairs Committee from the very beginning, but freshman senators don't get on Foreign Affairs.

Hayakawa

I don't think so. I was put on Foreign Affairs pretty early, wasn't I?

Orly

Yes. After the first two years. That's when the committee shifted again. When you were first came in, you were on the Agriculture Committee and Human Resources, and then two years

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later, there was another election. The Senate changed a little, and that's when you went on.

Shearer

So you had a tour of Africa in '78.

Hayakawa

Yes, but I had been to Africa before that.

Shearer

Oh, I see.

Hayakawa

I had one reason for it, is that San Francisco State had a kind of warm relationship--helping relationship--between San Francisco State and the education system of the Republic of Liberia. So several of our professors went over there to teach for a year, and some of their students came over to study for a year, and so on, and so I had visited Liberia before I was a senator.

Shearer

But then, as a senator, I read that you visited Zimbabwe, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, and Kenya in '78. Part of what you brought back was criticism of the Marxist government of Zimbabwe.

Orly

You might have had criticism of that government before you went. [chuckles]

Saccharine Controversy

Shearer

It would be interesting to me to mention a few of the issues on which you took positions of leadership and just see if we can kind of reconstruct some of the reasoning that underpinned these positions--maybe some of the strategy, a few moves, that you can recall.

There was a move to ban saccharine as a food additive because of suggestions of cancer in laboratory animals, and you opposed the removal of saccharine from the list of approved substances.

Orly

I remember, you came into the office one morning. You had read that this had taken place, I guess, in the paper or heard it on the radio, and you just thought it was dreadful. You asked us to draft legislation so that saccharine would be available. You were very concerned about: if saccharine wasn't available, there were a lot of people in our society who had depended on it, who would not have any sweetener, because the other sweetener--

---

Shearer

Aspartame?

Orly

No, the one before that--cyclamate?--was already off the market. Aspartame had not been developed at that time, and you were very concerned about everything from diabetics to people who wanted to watch their weight. Part of the rationale behind this was, there was a clause, called the Delaney Clause, which said that if a substance caused cancer in rats, then it automatically had to be pulled from human consumption. The amount of saccharine or any other substance that's fed to these rats for these tests is just so much higher than what a human would ever consume, that you just felt that some common sense needed to be interjected into this. Legislation of that type was eventually passed. It didn't have your name on it, although you introduced it immediately. It was passed out of the committee, and it probably carried the name of the chairman of the committee. This came through the Health and Human Resources Committee. I remember it very clearly, because, I remember, you came in, and you were quite concerned about this. You wanted to do something about it. You dropped the bill in right away.

Hayakawa

My staff did all the work, and not only that, they did all the remembering.

Orly

Well, it was your idea. That's what staff is for--carry out your ideas.

Trainee Wage Proposal

Shearer

What about the minimum wage, or the sub-minimum wage for students that you proposed?

Orly

Another one of Don's ideas.

Hayakawa

What did I propose?

Shearer

You proposed that there should be a lower-than-minimum-wage wage for students.

Orly

Trainees, not just students.

Hayakawa

That's become law since that time.

Orly

Well, it's going back and forth. I think Bush vetoed the bill, and I'm not sure what its current standing is.

---

Shearer

It's still in flux.

Orly

It's in flux, but you're right. It's an idea that is still being discussed at the highest levels of government.

Shearer

What was your reason for proposing this?

Hayakawa

Oh, that's very simple. That is, if you make a minimum wage--say, six dollars an hour, or whatever--and you have some inexperienced kids that you want to hire, to tidy up the storeroom or whatever, it's too much to have to pay for a struggling business. In order to give young kids a chance at any kind of a beginning job, I think you have a low minimum wage so that kids--from the point of view of a kid having his first job, whatever you get is so exciting and thrilling. You're fourteen years old, and you're already getting three-fifty an hour. If you raise the minimum wage, you're just cutting a lot of kids out. I always think about the very marginal businessman, too, who wants a little help but can't afford to hire somebody who wants union wages or anything like that.

Shearer

I see. So you saw it as a strategy for youth employment--encouraging young people.

Hayakawa

Yes.

Shearer

How did you resolve the difficulty that union people would have with, maybe, the employer hiring eleven kids to do what maybe seven union heads-of-households might do?

Hayakawa

I don't recall the problem ever came up, because if you're dealing with a really adult work, you've got an adult minimum wage. See, they're all just marginal businesses like a couple of errand boys you hire. For example, the supermarket--the young boys that do the bagging and so on. That isn't highly skilled work, by any means. It's just a convenience, and you can't really pay cashiers' wages for that kind of work. So there are all sorts of little marginal jobs like that, all sorts of small businesses for which there ought to be some allowance of the minimum wage available, so that kids could be hired.

Orly

The arguments there are the same arguments that are being propounded now. I think the senator's thought process was, many of these jobs will not exist at the minimum wage. People will just choose not to hire someone. His view is, by having the sub-minimum wage for a training period, it would allow employers to reach out and employ people who might be in their first job--give them a chance to learn about the work force. As for your

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comment about the union, my recollection is that unionized jobs are paying more than minimum wage.

Shearer

What about--well, of course, I guess we always have to contend with the unscrupulous practitioner. What about the employer, for example, who hires someone for that three-month training period, let's say, and then finds the person unsatisfactory and hires another person for another three-month training period, and continues to find--

Orly

Well, I'm smiling because, you know, there's a tremendous cost to an employer to train somebody. I mean, I understand the argument there if someone would do that. I'm not so sure that--I mean, I think that if that's a problem, then you deal with the problem. You don't prevent a program from going forward because something could be a problem.

Shearer

Of course, when you're talking about marginal skills--I think we're talking about that as a component of what we're discussing--I wonder whether the cost of training would be so great if what you want is a counterboy to wipe off the counters and sweep up the shop. There's a tremendous amount of discretion that resides with the employer in a case like that--to lay him off after three months.

Hayakawa

Well, I'm a strong believer in low beginners' wages, because if they're low enough, so that the employer says, Why, that's next to nothing, let's hire the kid. Lots of little kids get jobs that otherwise wouldn't get them. If you put a five-dollar- or eight-dollar-an-hour legally mandated cost for those things, those young kids would never get hired at all.

I remember working for two dollars a week after school. It was a very important two bucks, too. It gave us a freedom. What it was, it was going by bicycle from one Walgreens drugstore to another in Winnipeg, and picking up the films that had been turned in for finishing into prints, and then taking the finished prints back to the drugstore. You had to remember which drugstore you had to go back to. [chuckles]

Shearer

Lots of cycling in that job.

Hayakawa

Oh, I was so proud and pleased with my job. I think that was one of my earliest ones. You can't pay a hell of a lot for that kind of work.

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Food Stamps to College Students

Shearer

In May, 1979, you proposed amending the Senate Omnibus Farm Bill, to prevent food stamps from being issued to college students. One account alluded to the argument that students were already subsidized, to some extent, in their education and would, as a result of this education, make more money, because they would be advancing society. Therefore, food stamps was an unwarranted additional subsidy. You were not in favor of having students receive food stamps while they were in college. Do you remember this issue?

Hayakawa

I don't remember it at all.

Orly

This must have come up in the committee, and I don't remember it. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. One thing I do remember very clearly about the food stamp issue is, early on, in committee--originally, you had to buy your food stamps for a month. You had to have enough money to go in and buy them for a month. I know you, Don, were the crucial vote on whether that method of purchasing food stamps would be retained or changed. You voted to allow people to buy food stamps in smaller quantities, so people didn't have to pull together this--

Shearer

--significant amount of money to do that?

Orly

I remember there was a lot of discussion about it at the time, because it was in committee, and you listened to the various witnesses, and you were convinced by what the witnesses said--that that would be a more rational way to approach food stamps.

Shearer

To allow purchase of a week's supply, for example, rather than a month's supply. This would apply to all potential purchases?

Orly

At that time, anyone who qualified for food stamps. Now, the rules of who qualifies is another issue. That happened early on, because people were surprised--maybe that's where the "maverick" title comes from, because people expected you to vote certain ways on issues, and you frequently voted what made the most sense to you.

[Mark Hayakawa enters and greets the company, then leaves.]

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Views on Abortion

Shearer

What about your views on abortion? This was something that put you, I guess, at odds with some of the conservatives in your party, because you always opposed anti-abortion amendments.

Hayakawa

I still would. I remember going through all that at the time, but it made sense to me.

Shearer

You mean makes sense to allow it--it usually comes down to federal funding for abortion, which is the funding that allows poor women to receive--

Orly

Well, the abortion issue in Washington is more than just the federal funding. It's an issue that just most recently came before the Supreme Court: should women be allowed to have abortions? [to Hayakawa] Early on, we got a lot of mail on abortion, and you drafted, yourself, a wonderful response. The gist of it was--and this might be why the "humanitarian libertarian" comment was made about you later, because you said, basically, "It's none of the government's business--that it's up to the woman, and her doctor, and her lover, to decide."

Hayakawa

Even her husband. [laughter]

Shearer

That certainly does put it in the context of privacy and individual freedoms.

Orly

I think that's why the "libertarian" description fits you, because it's not a conservative versus liberal. It's really a personal rights view.

Shearer

Yes, and, of course, extending that to federal funding--

Hayakawa

I made a lot of good sense when I was young. [laughter]

Shearer

That would allow, of course, a poor woman the same right to privacy and to exercise that individual freedom as a woman of means. I guess that would be very consistent.

Orly

The one thing about that issue. In Washington, that is a very, very, shall we say, "hot" issue. People feel so strongly on that issue. There were people on Senator Hayakawa's staff who felt very strongly the opposite view from him. In fact, the poor staffer who handled that issue felt just the opposite--it was murder. I remember this very clearly, because she had to answer all that mail.

---

Hayakawa

She's the gal who works for an advertising agency in Los Angeles now.

Orly

Well, she felt that abortion was morally wrong.

Hayakawa

That fits in with the way I imagine her views would be.

Orly

Yes, but that's a difficult position to put a staffer in.

Shearer

Yes, it is. Thinking back to what you said earlier, too, about the Republicans hanging together, and presenting a united front, and supporting each other--

Orly

[chuckles] Not on that issue.

Shearer

--that must have been a very--

##

Shearer

Well, what was the situation among the Republican senators and congresspeople on that issue? Was there the party position?

Orly

Different members of Congress had different views on the abortion issue. It varied from member to member, and so people were very--amongst the members--it's recognized as a highly volatile political issue, and so people basically were allowed to do and say what they thought was right.

Shearer

Did the policy decision that you made and the letter that you drafted on abortion--did that happen after extended discussion within your own staff?

Orly

When people wrote in about that issue, there was a response we had drafted--actually that you drafted.

Hayakawa

Where the hell was the staff? [laughs]

Orly

It was such a controversial issue, Don, that on something like that we wanted to get your own words. You never varied on that, by the way.

[to Hayakawa] I have to tell them a wonderful story about you. Early on, when you first went back there, they had a training class, you might say, where they had all the senators and their new key staffers in a room, and they were teaching various things about how the Senate operates. One of the staffers who was active with this seminar brought you a cup of tea.

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You were taking notes, and they commented, afterward, how impressed they were that you were taking notes in Japanese. And I said, "No, no, he was taking notes in shorthand!" [laughter]

Shearer

That's right, from that business course at the University of Manitoba.

Hayakawa

Oh, no, that was in high school. I still use shorthand an awful lot.

National Consumer Cooperative Bank

Shearer

Let's see. You also supported creation of the National Consumer Cooperative Bank, and the reason you were quoted as giving was because Berkeley Co-op was one of the first businesses to hire Japanese Americans after World War II.

Hayakawa

Well, that's simply a sentimental reason. I had forgotten about that.

Orly

You always believed in the co-op method.

Hayakawa

I believe in co-ops. In fact, I was active in co-op long before that, when I was still living in Wisconsin. In fact, before I was married, I was supporting co-op service stations.

Shearer

I recall that in Chicago you worked to help establish the--

Hayakawa

--Chicago Consumers' Co-op--

Shearer

--and the co-op housing.

Orly

You were very active in the co-op here, the Berkeley Co-op.

Hayakawa

No, Marge was--

Orly

Marge was on the board?

Shearer

Yes. Marge was on the board here, and, I believe, in Chicago.

Hayakawa

We both have had a long, long interest in co-ops.

Shearer

Do you recall that development of legislation on that issue?

Orly

Yes. I mean, since he supported co-ops, it just made sense that he would have supported that.

---

Shearer

Is this an issue that went through easily? Or was there opposition to it from the regular banking interests?

Orly

I'm sure there was opposition from the regular banking interests, because for-profit banks tend not to be real thrilled about co-op banks. But I don't remember the issue.

Reparations for Japanese Americans

Shearer

Now, another thing that you spoke against was reparation for Japanese Americans after World War II, arguing, at least, according to some accounts in the press, that the camps had been good for the Japanese Americans because it had forced them to end their certain amount of cultural isolation and enter the mainstream. In what way was it good for, or did it encourage, Japanese Americans to enter the mainstream?

Hayakawa

There's no doubt that this happened for the mere fact they had been relocated and kept in camps for a certain number of years until the war was over and they had to go back into business somehow or other.

Shearer

Well, my question was, how did the camps encourage Japanese Americans to enter the mainstream of America? One of the points that was made, apparently, by you in explaining your opposition to the reparations--you said it was good because it forced people to end a certain amount of cultural isolation and enter the mainstream.

Hayakawa

Well, one very important reason is that--most of the Japanese were living somewhere between San Diego and Seattle along the West Coast, and the relocation put them back in Idaho, and Utah, and all sorts of places. A lot of the Japanese, when they left the camps, got jobs in Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, or wherever, and they just stayed there. They decided they didn't want to go back to the West Coast.

When the camps were dissolved, quite a few Japanese remained in their interior locations. The one example I know well is the fact that before World War II, there couldn't have been twenty Japanese in the whole of Chicago. Now there are two or three thousand at least, if not more. In fact, there's a whole Japanese district, and lots of Japanese shops, and so on, that were not there before the war. We lived in Chicago before the war. We moved to Chicago from Madison, Wisconsin, in 1939. There was one Japanese restaurant. There was no Japanese

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grocery store anywhere in town, but there was one Japanese woman with a rooming house that kept some Japanese groceries for sale in her storeroom. If the few Japanese who lived in town wanted some Japanese groceries, they would go to her. It wasn't even a real store. After the war was over, several thousand Japanese just settled in Chicago.

Shearer

So you're thinking more in terms of geographic dispersion rather than cultural assimilation, if the Japanese remained in Japanese districts?

Hayakawa

You know the terms, "Nisei," "Sansei," and so on? There were very few Sansei yet. The Nisei were in their twenties but they felt themselves at home, wherever they went, because they were English-speaking. A lot of people relocated to Minneapolis, or Chicago, or Denver, or somewhere. A lot of them never went back to the West Coast, so there's a whole movement of population eastward as a result of it--at least, where Japanese are concerned.

Shearer

So you weren't speaking of a language component? It was not that the Japanese Americans were integrated into the mainstream of America because of learning English in the camps. That was not--

Hayakawa

No, they didn't learn English in the camps.

Shearer

They just got moved around?

Hayakawa

Yes, they just got moved. The Nisei generation were already speaking English when they got to camp. Only a minority of them went to Japanese schools, and those Japanese schools were part-time things anyway--on Saturday after the regular American schools.

Shearer

Like Hebrew school?

Hayakawa

Like Hebrew school, yes. Exactly. I remember I did one winter in Vancouver, B.C. and went to Japanese school on Saturdays. I don't remember very much.

[pause]

Hayakawa

You know, the Japanese would not have been relocated and interned the way they were had they been immigrants of an earlier generation. But most Japanese had come to the United States after 1890--even more than before in the period up to 1915 or thereabouts. So they were really strangers in this country, except for the kids. And so, war having broken out

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between Japan and the United States, you didn't know whether they could be trusted to be loyal to the United States or to Japan.

Shearer

When you say they would not have been interned had they arrived a generation earlier--are you implying that they would have, by then, acquired English and therefore would not have seemed so strange? Why would that have made a difference at the time?

Hayakawa

Well, first of all, non-Japanese might have gotten used to them by that time. They were still strangers in our midst. The people old enough to have been born in the United States, gone to high school, graduated from high school or college, and become part of the community--that didn't happen until, I would say, another generation later. The majority of the Japanese were not only very recent immigrants, but because they were immigrants, their English was not very good, and so on. They were a really foreign element in our midst at the time the Second World War broke out. I mean, if you had emigrated twenty-five years before that war, you would have had a majority of English-speaking Japanese Americans from an American-born generation. The fact was that they were still strangers in our midst. It was a very important factor in whether or not the relocation took place.

Shearer

I gather that you're speaking more statistically than personally. In one of the essays that you wrote for U.S. English, you described a visit you made to one of the camps. I now cannot remember the name of the man you were visiting, but it was someone who was a contemporary of your father, and who was recalling, with great pleasure, English authors. It was Carlyle and somebody else that he and your father had read. So he seemed to be a man literate in English, certainly, but that had not saved him from being kind of swept up in this internment effort.

Hayakawa

Yes, he separated--the one person who has read novels of Thackeray from all the other Japanese.

Orly

I don't think speaking, or not speaking, English was the test that was used for being taken to the camps.

Hayakawa

The important thing is that they were all Japanese.

Shearer

As I understood it, you were offering, as one explanation of why they were considered suspect, was the element of strangeness--that speaking Japanese fluently and English not-so-fluently had on the policymakers.

---

Orly

I don't think it was the language. It's just the fact that they were Japanese and were perceived as probably being loyal to the emperor.

Hayakawa

Language has something to do with it, because the majority of them spoke more Japanese than English and because the Nisei--that's the American-born generation--was about fourteen to fifteen. You see? You have few adult Nisei at that time. American-born Nisei would go to high school or college here in the United States. If they had been the majority of the Japanese population, that would be a different thing. You would have four generations of English-speaking Japanese who have at least been through high school. So, therefore, they would be mixing freely with the non-Japanese population and had jobs there and so on. But when the war broke out, the average age of Nisei was probably well below sixteen. Those who were older than that were very few. Very few of them had important places in state or city government.

Shearer

I see.

Hayakawa

Because the Japanese, at that time, were still strangers in our midst, and the same with any immigrant group, especially one of a different color. You would stick out like a sore thumb in the community, until they all spoke English. Then you'd forget about it.

Shearer

You had another comment to make.

Hayakawa

Think of the difference it would make to the average white person who had been through high school with Japanese classmates. He would have played basketball with them and worked on debate teams with the Japanese-American classmates and so on. Their feelings are very different from that of their parents, who had never seen the Japanese except after the Japanese immigration had taken place.

Shearer

Well, one hopes it would be different. I don't know.

Hayakawa

I don't know how you can make it different, because it's a matter of chronology. See, if the Japanese had started immigrating to the United States, let's say, in 1870. By the time 1900 rolled around, a whole bunch of them would have American-born children. In 1915, most children would have gotten out of high school, and English-speaking, and part of the community. Most Japanese emigrated to the United States after 1900, so the parent generation spoke poor English, if they spoke it at all. A lot of them spoke it very badly. Their American-born children were citizens by birth. Their average age was

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something like twelve or thirteen. I mean, very few of them had gotten up high enough in age or in social position, to be mayors of cities, or members of the legislative assembly--which happened, of course, later on.

Shearer

I wonder whether the aftermath of bitterness and resentment that I think most people acknowledge is felt by those who were interned really encouraged entering the mainstream?

Hayakawa

Where do you get the feeling there was a lot of resentment or bitterness?

Shearer

Well, I guess that the move to ask for reparations indicates to me that there were a significant number of people who felt they had been violated--that their rights and the property and freedom of movement had been violated.

Hayakawa

Well, I have relatives among that group. They're dead by now, but their pervading sentiment was--you start the conversation. You have profession; their relocation. As my late aunt used to say, "What do you expect? There was war."

The fact that the United States was at war with Japan was a pervading fact, and the fact that they got relocated--she didn't resent one damn bit. She said, "What do you expect?" A lot of Japanese felt the same way, apparently.

Shearer

Very interesting.

Hayakawa

If they had gone to high school and spoken good English and were part of the American community at that time, it would have been very, very different, as it would be for them right now.

Shearer

Okay. I'd like to move now from the philosophical and, sort of, sociological view of this event to the political view. I gather that your comments on this subject and position on this subject made waves, politically, for you. At least, there were accounts in the press that this had offended Japanese Americans. Now, there may be certain groups of Japanese Americans, or the leaders of the movement, who are asking for reparations. [to Orly] Was this something that you, for example, as legislative director--did you have to do any work?

Hayakawa

I never joined that reparations movement.

Shearer

How did this sit politically?

Orly

There were those who thought that reparations would be the proper course to follow, and I can remember comments being made

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at the time, Senator, that you thought that a lot of the pressure of the reparations was coming not from the generation that was interned but from later generations.

Hayakawa

That was true.

Shearer

The younger generation?

Hayakawa

The younger generation was raising hell about it.

Orly

Frequently there were people who had not been in the camps but whose ancestors had.

Hayakawa

Or they were children in the camp.

Orly

Possibly.

Shearer

I see. So, how did you deal with this?

Hayakawa

We didn't do a damn thing about it, did we?

Orly

Yes. I mean, it's like a lot of issues, where there's just more than one opinion, in American society, on the best way to deal with an issue. Hayakawa felt the way he did, and he made his points. He didn't waver from that, and there were other people, including other senators, who didn't share that view. So nothing happened with the legislation.

Shearer

Was this an issue on which your political position affected your credibility, would you say, as a senator, or as a representative from California?

Hayakawa

Well, there's one way of finding out. [chuckles] The Japanese-American press may have criticized me, but I don't read Japanese. [chuckles]

Shearer

[to Orly] Did you have any opinion on this issue--on the Japanese internment issue? What did you advise?

Orly

Oh, I didn't advise on this. Don had very clear opinions on this, but I must say that my own views tended to fall right in line with his from things that my father had told me. My father was born in Richmond, grew up in Berkeley, and had a very close friend--his best friend was Chinese. Dad told me that the feelings during that wartime were much, much stronger than people now remember. He felt that if the Japanese had not been interned that anytime somebody got a letter from the front saying that their son had been killed, they might be just as likely to go out and grab the first Oriental person they saw,

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whether they be Chinese or Japanese, because many people could not delineate between the two, and kill them. Dad always felt--

Hayakawa

At least beat them up.

Orly

So Dad always felt that it was for their own safety--the proper thing to do. But I don't think I've ever discussed that with the senator. I mean, he had his views, and mine happened to coincide from what my father had told me. My father spoke German and Hungarian, and they never spoke Hungarian outside the home during World War I--or German--for the same reason. When the country was at war, the public pressure against anything affiliated with the enemy was tremendous, and I think people discount that now. But from what my father said, it was very strong.

Shearer

I can believe that. I can believe it. Of course, a Hungarian-speaking person, unless he has no accent in English, doesn't advertise himself as a Hungarian by his appearance, but a Japanese-speaking person who is Japanese American--

Orly

--can't hide.

Shearer

There's no way to hide.

Hayakawa

It pays to advertise. [laughter]

Guest Worker Program

Shearer

Do you have any comments you would care to make on the guest worker program for illegal aliens or Mexican alien workers?

Hayakawa

No, except to say that if I were an impoverished Mexican near the American border, I would illegally come over and get a job myself.

Shearer

At one point, you did introduce legislation calling for a guest worker program, and you met with President [Jose] Lopez Portillo to kind of work that out. It was not successful in the Senate, but I just wondered if you could reconstruct some of your thinking on that. Maybe Elvira remembers.

Orly

Well, for many years, there was a program where people could come from Mexico and work in the agricultural--

Shearer

Bracero program.

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Orly

Bracero program. There was a lot of feeling at the time that the senator concurred with, that we needed to maintain some legal option for people to come into this country to do agricultural work. One of the problems that had existed, was the pool of American workers willing to do this type of work was very small. So in many ways it was a supply and demand problem.

Hayakawa

We put kids all the way through high school--

##

Shearer

You put kids through high school and--?

Hayakawa

They got a feeling that the physical labor's beneath you. After all, I graduated from high school. And so, you have to have some kinds of people from somewhere who will be willing to do physical labor and are damned glad to get it, whether it's harvesting green beans or whatever the hell it is. It's a living. Mexicans are the available people in large parts of the United States.

Panama Canal Treaty

Shearer

The Panama Canal controversy--in 1976, during the campaign, you, apparently, felt that we should not hand the canal back to the Panamanians because, as you were quoted as saying, "We stole it fair and square."

Hayakawa

[laughs] One of the immortal statements in American politics.

Shearer

Then, later, you helped Carter win ratification of the treaty, which, then, did give the canal back to Panama. How did that change come about?

Hayakawa

Well, "we stole it fair and square" [laughs] was a wisecrack. It wasn't intended to be a policy statement, but it was taken by some people--sort of literal-minded people--as a policy statement. That was a great mistake.

Shearer

Did you feel that we ought to have kept the canal?

Hayakawa

No, I never did. Not at that time. Right now, I think we should have kept it. [laughs]

Shearer

[to Orly] I'm going to take note of a raised hand.

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Orly

No, I'm just smiling because--[to Hayakawa] she had asked me earlier if there was ever an issue that I didn't agree with you, and I told her that you and I agreed on almost every issue. Looking back, philosophically, we were very much in tune. The one issue that I did recall, however, where we differed, was the Panama Canal. You voted, along with President Carter, to return the canal, and my own personal views were just the opposite. But that's really the only issue that I can look back and say that I might have advised you to do something different than what you did.

Shearer

But did you, in fact, advise him to vote?

Orly

No, he made up his own mind.

Shearer

But did you feel free to say, "This is what I would recommend to you, Senator"?

Hayakawa

You didn't say anything that felt free to say that. [laughs]

Shearer

Why do you think we--

Hayakawa

Well, there's a very important thing. I was a senator. She was staff. So I had taken a position. I don't know how many people within the staff disagreed with me, but no one said a damn thing, including her. Isn't that right?

Orly

Yes. Well, once the decision is made, then everyone goes along, because once the decision is made, you can't have infighting. It has to be implemented.

Shearer

But in the course of your research and discussion--

Orly

Before the decision is made, then there's lots of discussion.

Shearer

And then you would have felt free to say, "I think you're making a mistake, Senator, because x-y-z,..." and what would the "because" have been at that time?

Hayakawa

It's hard to remember exactly what the issues were. What was involved?

Orly

Well, there was a lot involved there. Not only was it a situation where we gave the canal back, but we paid them! The primary issue, as I look back, was one of continued availability of the canal to American ships, both during peacetime and in the future--God forbid--if there is ever another war. When you don't control something, and there's a war, you might not be able to use it. That was my concern.

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Shearer

So future access was your primary concern.

Orly

Future access, where on the flip side the people that felt very strongly that we should give it back were concerned with our relations with Latin America at that time and how, by giving it back, we would be sending them all the right and proper signals, and, if we ever had a problem, militarily, later, we would deal with that then. So there were definitely two sides to this issue, and it's--

Shearer

So fairness was definitely part of the deal.

Orly

Yes, and interhemisphere relations.

Shearer

[to Hayakawa] How do you feel now? You said you now feel that we should have kept it. What has gone into that change of mind and heart?

Hayakawa

Well, what I would say is that if the issue were before me now, I would vote differently from how I voted then. But I'm not overcome with grief that I voted the way I did. Carter was trying so hard to show that he was not an imperialist--he's a good guy and wants to be friendly with other nations--and so on and so on. I don't think he was making a terribly bad mistake, although I think it's more of a mistake than not a mistake, still.

Shearer

I'm wondering if that kind of--

Hayakawa

He brought it up, you know. He just worked it up to an issue. It wouldn't have been an issue at all if he had simply ignored it and let the status quo remain--let it remain under American control.

Shearer

Newspaper accounts of the controversy credit you with helping him to get the treaty ratified. Do you recall how you were involved? [to Orly] Would you recall being involved?

Orly

Yes, it got down to just before the vote. There were very few senators who had not publicly stated that they were going to go one way or the other. You were one of the last "undecided" or "undeclared" senators.The others were James Abourezk (D-South Dakota) and Howard W. Cannon (D-Nevada).

There was a press conference a couple days before the vote, and I think a lot of people expected you to come out opposed to

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the treaty at that press conference, and you did not. It wasn't clear at the end of that press conference, to a lot of the people in the room, what you were going to do. I think they expected a definitive statement, and they did not get one at that press conference.

Shearer

Oh, I see. So you had not at that point announced that you were going to support ratification.

Orly

It was just before the vote, I do remember, that you let it be known that you would go along with Carter.

Shearer

So it was essentially your vote which was the help in ratifying the treaty, not spadework or networking.

Orly

No, it was the vote. They needed that vote. I'm not sure of the margin.The final vote was 68-32 by the Senate approving the Second Panama Canal Treaty on April 18, 1978. Two-thirds majority, sixty-six votes, were needed to pass.

Hayakawa

It wasn't a big one, I know that.

Orly

No, it was that close. I mean, it wasn't more than two, and it might have just been one.

Shearer

The Panama Canal controversy and your quip, which was so widely quoted, brings up, for me, that aspect of your role as senator in which you seemed to take delight in the compressed statements of an issue that are immensely quotable and, for some people, sometimes confusing.

Hayakawa

This one was. My wisecrack went in the opposite direction.

Shearer

I'm wondering how--this happened in a couple of instances, I believe, one concerning the 1979 oil crisis, which translated into very long lines at the gas stations. There was a meeting at the White House which you attended, and, following this meeting, everybody came out. The reporters said, "Well, what do you think?" You had proposed a deregulation of gas to increase the supply. That being the case--I guess a reporter was saying, "Well, it might then go to two dollars a gallon." The reporter said, "What do poor people do in the case like that?"

Orly

I think I remember this.

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Shearer

And you replied that well, most poor people do not have jobs and, therefore, would not need their cars, and would not need the gas. This was broadcast in various versions around and, I gather, stirred up a lot of trouble. Is this true--that it stirred up trouble for you?

Hayakawa

I didn't feel the trouble. There was some negative reaction to what I said at the time. But it wasn't answerable.

Shearer

You mean the question that the reporter put to you?

Hayakawa

No, the issue--see? We were talking about a rise in the price of gasoline, weren't we? What could anyone have done to stop that rise?

Orly

Well, I think your suggestion to deregulate would have solved the problem in terms of supply. It might have caused the price to go up, and I remember the comment that you made and some of the ensuing comments that reporters and others made after that. But the point that you very clearly made at the time, which was not always spread, was a lot of people who are facing poverty are facing a large number of problems. Some of them don't even own cars, so it's not as if the total, shall we say, poverty population would find the increase in gas as their biggest problem. They have lots of other problems. That was an example that you used, about the cleaning woman who didn't even own a car.

Hayakawa

It didn't hurt them at all to have the price of gas go up.

Public Relations Challenges

Shearer

[to Hayakawa] Many reporters have commented on your ability, or your penchant, for making succinct, off-the-cuff remarks, this being a case in point. There are a couple of others that were mentioned. [to Orly] Sometimes the legislative director has to follow after the candidate and do mopping up. What did you do when a remark by Senator Hayakawa would generate a big flap of negative publicity?

Orly

I think what we tried to do is to convey to people what was actually said, because frequently portions of things are recorded, as opposed to the entire comment. So you have distortion that comes from only hearing part of something, or you hear the full sentence, but you didn't hear what went before that, or sometimes just explaining so it was obvious to people what something meant. For example, when you make a comment about poor people and the price of gas, everyone thinks about

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their definition of poor, and their definition of poor may or may not include poor people who don't own cars. You're having to deal with people's reactions to a statement, and so sometimes you have to try to explain to them that there might be another plausible reaction to a statement, which wasn't the one that they initially jumped to.

Shearer

Maybe, too, that the people hearing that remark, since they're, maybe, lower middle class or blue-collar, consider themselves poor, and they may own a car and a boat. But they don't see themselves as rich.

Orly

Yes. The question is, who's poor? Who's rich, who's poor? That's a constant problem in Washington. The joke is that anybody who earns more than you do is rich.

Shearer

And of course, people who live in Los Angeles, whether they are rich or poor, I think, have a tremendous amount of anxiety about the loss of mobility that a car represents. There isn't any subway line. There is no public transportation that really serves--

Orly

It's limited. But you have to remember, at that time, there was no gas either. What is the worst problem: not having any gas or having it available at a higher price?

Shearer

That's true. Of course, there were people who argued afterwards that the gas crisis was manufactured by the government or by the oil companies.

Orly

Well, I heard both. There are certain government policies, and it wasn't that the government manufactured it. It's that there were certain government policies which resulted in this situation.

I have to share a little story with you. I, later on in my career, went to work for an oil company. I had always heard all these stories about how the oil companies run the world. Well, based on my impression from having worked at one [chuckles], the public didn't have to worry. They didn't run the world.

Shearer

Did they run the country?

Orly

I would say they were not that astute.

Shearer

The gas price deregulation proposal that you made, Senator, and the statements that generated the flap occurred after this White House meeting. Some reports said that you were nodding and that this was a kind of a turning point in your career--that this was

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an instance of being asleep at the switch. This is in 1979. This was, I would say, mid-term. Is this a fair assessment?

Orly

I would disagree with that. I think that, early on, in '77, Johnny Carson started to crack jokes. I think that the Johnny Carson jokes were harmful and created an image which was never modified in the eyes of the public or press. You know, there was discussion early on in 1977 about having you go on the Johnny Carson show. The decision was made that no, you shouldn't go on. Who knows if that was the right decision or not, but the concern about those jokes was--when I say "go on the Johnny Carson show," it would to be a guest on the show, so people could see that you were alive, well, and not asleep. Those jokes were, from a public relations standpoint, devastating. I can give you an example. You might remember some of the jokes, but he used to do license plates. The one that he had for you was six Zs. That's a very funny joke, except it creates an impression and image which--

Hayakawa

What was the license plate?

Orly

Six Zs--you know, as in snoring. A very funny joke, but it created an image that was never altered. So if you're saying, "Was this a problem in '79?" I think it was just one more piece of wood on that pile. Oh, it was constant. It never stopped. That's what I'm saying. You were never able to change that image.

Shearer

Do you remember why the decision was made not to go on the show? Do you remember what was advised?

Orly

Well, first of all, I don't know that the senator was ever involved in it. I think it was something that was discussed at the staff level--the press secretary, and Gene, and myself, and maybe some of the people in the state. I think that it was felt that as a U.S. Senator, that was a senior policy position in government and that it would not be appropriate for you to be going on "The Tonight Show" as a guest. It wasn't that you were reluctant to go on to answer those charges--not at all. But it was even in terms of trying to convey a senatorial presence. I don't want to say "It wasn't done," but it was sort of thought that you don't demean the office by going on a talk show.

Shearer

Do you care to comment on the oil swap proposal? This was your proposal to sell Alaskan crude oil to Japan so that we--the United States--buy Mexican oil, which would alleviate Japan's dependence on oil from the Middle East and allow Mexico to attain some reasonable trade balance.

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Orly

I remember that your suggestion served several purposes. Japan had a growing trade imbalance with the United States. They were selling a lot more to us than they were buying from us. The sale of oil to them would have helped a balance of trade with them. From a transportation standpoint, that oil was a lot closer to Japan than it was to other parts in the U.S. The concept of the balance of trade problem with Mexico, as you mentioned, was a factor.

The result was that the idea never moved, because the carryover from the oil crisis--there was a fear that the U.S. should hold onto every drop of oil that it had in the country and that it should not be sending that type of important natural resource anywhere else. It really was a philosophical carryover from the oil crisis of the prior administration. Even though it made a great deal of sense in many ways, there was a philosophical hurdle that could never be jumped.

Shearer

Or maybe an emotional one?

Orly

Well, maybe emotional.

Shearer

So this is why Reagan did not act on that.

Orly

That's right.

Shearer

At least, it seemed like a very ingenious proposal.

Orly

I'm sure there were the national security types who also opposed it for the same reasons.

Shearer

Because "this is our stuff. It belongs in this country"?

Orly

Yes, "We don't know when we might need it."

Big Sur Park Proposal

Shearer

I understand that you were able to block creation of a new national park encompassing the Big Sur coast and that this was Cranston's bill. You outmaneuvered him in order to block approval of this. Why?

Hayakawa

Well, the fundamental thing is that I knew the people at Big Sur. I had been there more than once. I knew a lot of people there, and they didn't want this to happen. They maintained that they cared as much for the environment and the preservation

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of the natural beauty of the area as much as the National Park Service or anybody else: "Don't let the government take us over." So I took their side on the matter.

Shearer

What did they fear from the National Park Service?

Orly

Loss of control.

Hayakawa

Yes. They didn't want an outside agency to take over and tell them what they can do with their land.

Shearer

These were primarily the landowners in this instance?

Hayakawa

They were people who lived there.

Shearer

[to Orly] Do you have any additional comments on this?

Orly

The federal government owns a tremendous amount of land in the western part of the United States. More than 80 percent of Nevada is owned by the federal government, and so there is a feeling that when it comes to land in the West, the government is telling people what they can and cannot do. These people felt that they could do a better job or as good a job without the government.

Shearer

Do you remember any of the--

Hayakawa

Taking over a large area to put it in the hands of the government usually presupposes a lack of trust--what the common people might do to the place. Louse it all up or something.

Orly

Yes, and that's spending a lot of taxpayers' money.

Hayakawa

I had been to Big Sur enough and known enough people who had leadership positions there to know they shared as much intensity, and as much love, as the National Park Service ever would. So that's the place I had.

Genesis of U.S. English

Shearer

I would like to ask now about the genesis of U.S. English.

Hayakawa

I don't think that had anything to do with my Senate service. It started in 1983.

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Shearer

But I had read somewhere, or I guess maybe Elvira told me, that you, Don, brought the idea of U.S. English or of making English the official language of the United States with you into the Senate, and it was partly fueled by your being disturbed at the bilingual aspect to the ballot, which was an addition to the Voting Rights Act which Tunney, I gather, was partly responsible for.

Orly

The ballots had to be printed in many, many languages. When you were elected to the Senate, the law of the land was that if a certain percentage of the population was foreign-speaking in a given area, then the ballot had to be in that language. I think in San Francisco, the ballot was in several languages--the Filipino language, which, I think, is Tagalog. It was in Chinese, it was in Spanish, it was in English, and we felt that if people were going to be American citizens and one of the requirements of being a citizen is to speak English, the ballot ought to be in English.

Shearer

So this is something that you remember the senator discussing from the beginning?

Orly

Very clearly. It also came up in the Bilingual Education Program in the public schools. He was concerned there. He thought it was wonderful for people to learn English--that was an important function--but he feared that the bilingual program was not a situation where people were learning to speak English but a situation where their original language was being perpetuated without learning English.

Shearer

I see. And this was early on. This was while you were still--

Orly

This was when we arrived in Washington.

Shearer

[to Orly] How long did you serve the senator?

Orly

Four years, until just before Reagan was elected.

##

Shearer

You introduced the English Language Amendment on April 27, 1981.S. J. Resolution 72, April 27, 1981, the English Language Amendment, died without action. See pages 249-251 for discussion. What was the reaction?

Orly

Negative.

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Shearer

Negative--from everyone?

Orly

No, from certain Spanish-speaking groups. LULAC [League of United Latin American Citizens], although I think maybe LULAC was more concerned about the guest worker program. There were elements of the Hispanic organizations that disagreed with a couple of things you were trying to do--on the ballot, on the Bilingual Education Program, and the guest worker program as well.

Shearer

How about in the Senate?

Orly

We weren't able to get the Democratic committee leaders to join us. They were afraid of offending these groups who opposed this legislation. The constituency was probably very small. The leadership was vocal.

Shearer

Judging from the percentages by which the propositions passed in the individual states subsequent to that time, it does suggest that the opposition had less general support.

Orly

Yes, that's right. His formulation of the issue was one that many, many voters in this country agreed with but the Senate leadership was afraid to embrace.

Senate Politics

Shearer

How do you feel, Senator, the Senate politics compare with the politics of academic life?

Hayakawa

The politics of academic life is much, much dirtier. That's because each department has a single interest. "We've got to protect our chemistry department against the French department or the physics department," et cetera, whereas, to make an analogy, if you're a senator--or a congressman, too, at that--you're just not as interested in the physics department as you are in the English department or the French department or anything else. We had to handle all questions as they come up, whether it's automobile safety or aggression from a foreign nation like Iceland or something--whatever. You're not specialists in one field of knowledge or one area of concern when you're in politics. But when you're a professor, you can spend your whole goddamn life on certain kinds of insects and not even consider the entire insect world--even less the entire animal world. You just concentrate on a little, tiny segment: "The Lepidoptera--my specialty."

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Shearer

Pork barrelism indicates that history abounds with examples of trading favors in the Senate and the House to benefit the particular interests of the constituents back home. How does that sit with your assessment of the global scope of senatorial politics?

Hayakawa

I never thought of anything we did as being pork barreling--that is, creating a monopoly of interest in one subject or one commodity at the expense of other states or other communities.

Communicating with Constituents

Shearer

One of the criticisms or, some might say, analyses that was made of your performance in the Senate that surfaced in news accounts said that you had difficulty building a popular local base. Do you think that's true?

Hayakawa

It may be. I really don't know. That is, California is a huge state. I hardly built a base of support in, let's say, Chico, without neglecting San Luis Obispo. It's a hell of a big state.

Shearer

[to Orly] Do you have a comment on that?

Orly

I don't think I would agree with that. I mean, building a popular base of support-support for what? I mean, the things he worked on and the views he held were probably shared by an enormous number of people in the state. It's a very diverse state. That's not to say that everyone thinks the same way in the state. They don't. There's just a tremendous variety of thought here. I do think that a large segment of population fundamentally agreed with positions that Hayakawa was taking on issues and the things that he was working toward.

I think that's another point that a lot of people might not have even realized--a lot of the things that he was working on they could be in complete agreement.

Shearer

Now, why would that be?

Orly

Well, because only things that are highly controversial make the newspapers. That is just the nature of news. I mean, what is newsworthy is something that is controversial. To the extent that senators send out newsletters telling their constituents what they're working on--that serves as one mechanism for letting people know the various things they're doing.

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But to a great extent, a lot of work is done on things that people will be very pleased about--they're not aware of it. There's not a lot of room in a newsletter to talk about a lot of issues, and, in fact, in a newsletter, you frequently have to deal with the controversial issues because those are the ones that people have been hearing about in the press. You almost have to use the newsletter as a means to provide the balance for those issues. You really don't have a chance to adequately inform people on many of the things that you're doing.

Deciding to Retire

Shearer

Toward the end of your term, there were reports that the Republican leadership or, simply, Republican senators were coaxing you to retire. Why was this?

Hayakawa

So many of my friends were telling me what I should do in order to regain my seat, because I got a good position now, got a good reputation, lots of friends in the state. They didn't even say, "You must run again." They said, "When you run again, you've got to do this, this, and this."

Shearer

It was just assumed. I see.

[to Orly] And you left in '80. Why did you leave then?

Orly

Well, I had been married for about a year, and, although I loved what I did, the hours were very, very long. Now, they weren't long because someone said, "You must work long hours." They were long because the demands of the job were great. There was just a lot to do. My husband at the time was working downtown for a trade association, and he seemed to have a little more control over his life than I had over mine in the sense that whenever the Senate was in, I was there--whether they were in all night or not. Then when they went into recess and Don would come back to the state to work on things here, I would be trying to find the top of my desk, because many things built up that I didn't have time to get to when the Senate was in session. It was a very intense schedule.

I might say that I did it because I chose to do it that way. I mean, if I was a different personality, maybe I could have left at six o'clock or seven o'clock. But I wasn't, so I would be there until nine o'clock. I just felt that it would be a nice idea to work a little more controlled hours, particularly

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since I had a husband who was wondering why he never saw his wife.

Shearer

Yes, that's certainly reason enough.

[to Hayakawa] You decided, apparently, to retire, or not to run again, in January of 1981, actually. It was reported that you had already made that decision. What led you to decide not to run again?

Hayakawa

Well, it's really very simple--because of Marge. Marge couldn't move with me to Washington, and I didn't feel comfortable being away from home for most of another six years.

Shearer

That's right: she was out here in California, taking care of Mark.

How often did you fly home?

Hayakawa

[to Orly] How often would that be?

Orly

Well, I know that when you started in office, we tried to have you come home once a month. I remember the Senate schedule--

Hayakawa

We never quite made it.

Orly

It's very tough, because you lose a day returning. You fly out Friday at the five o'clock flight, and you would have Friday evening here and events on Saturday. The state people were very anxious to have you attend events and meetings in the state. The hope was that you would come out once a month during this time that the Senate was in, and then, of course, during all the recesses, you would be in the state. That's a killer flight to go out and back on the weekend.

Shearer

Oh, I should think so.

Hayakawa

It really was.

Orly

And there were months where you did it more than once. I mean, it's not to say that you only went once a month. There were times when you were out twice in a month. It's hard to imagine what the drain and strain of these jobs are. I mean, my mother used to worry about my physical health, because I would get infections, and I would have them, and I would be taking antibiotics, and I would have those infections for six months. She was convinced that it was the stress of the workplace. I must say, she was probably right. They went away when I changed jobs. [chuckles]

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Hayakawa

It must be very tough on [Hawaiian Senators] [Daniel] Inouye and [Spark] Matsunaga.

Orly

I don't think they fly home that often.

Hayakawa

No, they don't fly home that often. Even if they fly once a month, it's tough.

Effectiveness in the Senate

Shearer

Going to the question of effectiveness in the Senate, on the one hand, there were some reports that your own party coaxed you to retire. On the other side, there is a quotation from Senator Baker. He said there are three kinds of senators--loners, the convivial ones, and the consulted. And he said, "Hayakawa was a senator who was consulted." How would you, Elvira, assess Senator Hayakawa's effectiveness in the Senate?

Orly

I would agree with Senator Baker's analysis of the three types of senators and that Senator Hayakawa was one who was consulted.

Hayakawa

Give me those three again?

Shearer

There are the loners, the convivial ones, and those who are consulted.

Hayakawa

Consulted, that's interesting.

Orly

I think that he was consulted because he was well respected. He was well respected because he was viewed as being very intelligent, very articulate, and having a way of analyzing issues and problems that was different than the way other people might have looked at something. He brought a unique view, and that's something that was often sought out. He was held in very high regard by his colleagues, I think much more so than the press realized. The Senate is a very private club, and Hayakawa was not a politician's politician. He was a very well-respected member of the club, for his intellect--for what he brought to bear on all of the topics that he turned his attention to. He was viewed as a very thoughtful man.

Shearer

Who were the senators who tended to consult and check in with the Senator?

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Hayakawa

I think there were so many of them, that you'd chat for long periods at a time--Larry Pressler was one. Howard Baker and I had a lot of conversations, and later on, with Bob Dole.

Orly

You spent a lot of time with Senator Ted Stevens, also.

Hayakawa

Senator Stevens? Yes, I went to Alaska with him, and gee, we went over a lot of subjects together--had long talks. Senator Stevens was really wonderful. There was somebody else I got along very well with--Carl Levin, a Democrat from Michigan.

Shearer

How do you account for that?

Hayakawa

Well, we were thrown together quite by accident. He and I both went to a Cambodian refugee camp to report back to our own committees what was going on in that part of the world.

Shearer

This was a Foreign Relations subcommittee?

Hayakawa

Yes. Anyway, we were thrown together for three or four days, eating Cambodian or Thai food, or whatever it was we were eating, and spending so much time with refugee children. It's heartbreaking.

Shearer

[to Orly] Did you want to elaborate on that at all--any of the other senators that you remember, who came in, or whose aides came in, to check with you and Senator Hayakawa?

Orly

Well, in addition to the people that he already mentioned, every Wednesday, he met with what was called the Senate Steering Committee to discuss the upcoming issues. Sometimes they had outsiders, shall we say--guests--come join them, and the guests were a wide ranging lot. I can remember a couple of them. Tom Wolfe came.

Hayakawa

Did he?

Orly

Yes, and he talked about writing The Bonfire of the Vanities. It was a book about New York. Anyway, the point is, I remember him being there, and he was a very unusual guest. What did this man have to do with politics? Well, I think the answer was, very little. But he was an extremely good observer of life in the United States, and so there was a very active round-table discussion with him.

Hayakawa

He's actually a fascinating guy.

Orly

And I remember once that Phyllis Schlafly came and addressed that group.

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Hayakawa

I don't remember that.

Orly

I remember, because, of course, you didn't agree with her. [laughs] I was there. I was probably the only staffer in the room. That's how it tends to work out. Margo Carlisle and I would be the ones that were there. Margo was the staff director for the Republican Steering Committee, and that was the group that met every Wednesday for lunch. Senator Hayakawa was a member of that group. It was really the, shall we say, more moderate wing--moderate grouping--of Republicans.

Shearer

By the way, were there very many female faces among the staff?

Orly

When I arrived in 1977, there were very few women in what we call "policy positions." The few that I ran into all worked for Republicans. Interestingly enough, you did not find, at that time, females in key policy jobs working for Democrats. They were paid a lot of lip service, but in point of fact, there was an absolute dearth. On the Republican side, however, the situation was different. Margo Carlisle was a staff director for the Republican Senate Steering Committee. Stevens had a female, Susan Alvarado, who covered the floor for him. I, of course, was legislative director for you. Pam Turner was working for [Senator John] Tower. She eventually went down to the White House. There were several women in key jobs, but they were all working for Republicans.

Shearer

Did this change over a period of years?

Orly

Slowly, very slowly, but it did improve.

Shearer

Over the Senate as a whole, or on the Democratic side?

Orly

Over the Senate as a whole. The Republicans had women in key jobs long before the Democrats did--years.

Shearer

That's interesting.

The press tended to criticize the performance of Senator Hayakawa in the Senate and also the performance of his staff. There were maybe a dozen accounts--

Hayakawa

I wasn't aware of this. What press?

Shearer

Well, mainly the Sacramento Union carried, I guess, editorial comment. The Atascadero--

Orly

We're getting near the end of his term.

---

Shearer

Yes, it was at the end. The news hook, of course, for the commentaries was the senator's impending reelection campaign, and so it was the occasion for looking back over his term. Several accounts described his service as being lackluster. How would you characterize the senator's performance in the Senate? What do you think?

Orly

Let me give you one example of a news story that I remember very clearly. It was early on, and there was a piece of legislation that the senator had cosponsored and helped introduce. During the committee markup, the legislation was severely altered, so much so that it was no longer along the philosophical lines that he had initially urged. So when the legislation moved forward, he was no longer in support.

I remember the Los Angeles Times headline: "Hayakawa Votes Against Bill He Co-Sponsored." Now, this is the type of story that is very frustrating, because this reporter never looked at the issue and what had occurred. The senator was there. There was a reason why this was done. They wrote it as if he didn't know what he was doing. The senator knew exactly what he was doing. That's why he voted against it.

Shearer

Because he had followed the changes?

Orly

Yes, because it was no longer anything like what he initially wanted to support.

Shearer

Do you think the press was particularly attentive to any possible missteps or mistakes in the case of Senator Hayakawa?

Hayakawa

Well, when you say "the press," there also are the different guys that we went to, and there's no blanket characterization. Some were hostile. Some were very, very friendly. Some were objective; some were not. Isn't that right?

Orly

That's right.

Hayakawa

I had no complaints about the press.

Shearer

Do you want to comment on anything to do with the staff competence? I realize [chuckles] that this is putting you very much on the spot.

Orly

I thought we had very capable people who worked very hard. We had everything from Ph.D.s, M.B.A.s--we had a wide variety of people. I think that whether someone views staff as doing a good job or not is a very subjective view. I'm not sure the press is always in--I mean, they had their opinion. I think

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that their opinion was based only on parts of what they were able to see, and I think staff did a tremendous amount that they were not aware of. For example, I doubt that the press realized the amount of mail that went through that office. Somebody might say that we did an excellent job answering thousands of letters. When Senator Hayakawa was elected, he and one other senator received the most mail in the entire U.S. Senate.

Shearer

Who was that?

Orly

I think it was Kennedy.

Shearer

Really? That's remarkable.

Orly

But, you know, there was no comment in the press that, gee, we do a great job trying to get answers to people within a very short period of time, because they were totally unaware of that.

Shearer

Well, that would be an invisible activity, I guess, to the press.

Orly

Well, possibly, to the press. But that's what I'm saying. An awful lot of things were done, and I think many of them were done extremely well, that the press wasn't even aware of. So I would not agree with their assessment of the staff.

Shearer

And I don't say that was the universal assessment.

Orly

And that's not to say that staff always did everything perfectly. I mean, I'm not trying to say that they were saints and everything was perfect, but I think they did a good job, particularly given the constraints under which they were working.

Shearer

Which were--

Orly

Freshman senator, minority party.

Shearer

That's a heavy burden.

Orly

Well, I think we were very effective, given the constraints.

Colleagues Remembered

Shearer

[to Hayakawa] What do you look back on with the most satisfaction of your accomplishments in the Senate?

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Hayakawa

Well, first of all, let me say that the friends that I made in the Senate I still cherish very, very much--Ted Stevens, Larry Pressler. I don't know how many more. There was a Democrat from one of the southern states. Sam--

Orly

Nunn.

Hayakawa

Sam Nunn. Now, I didn't get to know him well, but I just admired him very, very much. I became very good friends with Senator [Daniel Patrick] Moynihan, but I didn't admire him very much. [chuckles]

Shearer

What about Senator Goldwater? Did you become close with him?

Hayakawa

Oh, yes. He sat right behind me. This was just a happenstance of seat arrangements. Yes, I got along very, very well with him.

##

Shearer

Was Senator Goldwater a help to you, in introducing you and--

Hayakawa

No, it wasn't that kind of help. It was just a sort of camaraderie. We really didn't do anything together. I was always delighted to see him, and he always acted delighted to see me, and we got along just fine. It's not that we got into any profound acts of cooperation or plotting. It's just that we liked each other.

Somebody else I got along with very, very well is the guy who's even more conservative, and that's Jesse Helms. He took me to North Carolina with him once and to great, big political meetings. In a halfhearted way, I wanted to test him--so I took a black girl out from my staff to North Carolina with him. He treated her just royally. He'd say, this is Senator Hayakawa's staff member, Miss So-and-so--I forget her name. She really was very black, and very shy, and very nice. Wherever we went, he also introduced the black girl and treated her with the utmost courtesy and Southern courtliness. Of all the people in the Senate that I could like so very, very much was Jesse Helms, although I disagreed with him so often. He was considerably to the right of Genghis Khan [laughter] but a wonderful fellow.

We went to North Carolina on one occasion and attended a rally. Young people who were supporting Jesse Helms came up on stage. They did a clog dance. I don't know that they put taps on the heels or not, but the whole bunch of them went round and around and around that front stage, making a hell of a racket with their shoes, you see.

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And I joined them.

Shearer

You did! I was going to ask you--[laughs]--

Hayakawa

And yes, he was so glad to be in the audience. It was very funny.

Orly

I think you also went to the black churches on that trip.

Hayakawa

Yes. I think I took that black girl along from my staff.

Accomplishments and Rewards of Senate Service

Orly

I was going to give you an example. We were talking earlier about the perception of the press and how I thought that they weren't always privy to a lot of the things that went on that were accomplished. Earlier, we were talking about the saccharine legislation, and I mentioned--you know, Hayakawa introduced the saccharine legislation, and it was eventually passed into law, but it didn't have his name on it. It had the chairman of the committee's name on it, and so there were a lot of things that he worked on, that he was instrumental in getting passed, which didn't bear his name. Frequently, the press responds to having your name on something. They're not always aware of a lot of the machinations that are going on, shall we say, behind the scenes.

Shearer

If any other names of legislation come to you that you want to mention as falling within this category, please feel free to do so. I'm thinking of asking about what kind of a legacy the senator left in the Senate, and, of course, legislation is a--

Orly

Legislation, of course, is part of a legacy, but I would say a great deal of Senator Hayakawa's legacy will be that people will look back and say, "You know, he was right about that." There are so many issues--

Hayakawa

[laughs] I don't know how much I can say, Elvira. I love you madly.

Orly

Well, there are so many issues that the senator spoke out on, many of which he was criticized in the press for, and time will prove him right. I think we're already seeing that. Many of the issues that the senator was grappling with when he was in office are still with us today, and I hasten to say that some of the Senate issues will be with us ten years from now and into

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the future. I think that many of the solutions that he was proposing are still being talked about and some of them being implemented.

Earlier today, we talked about the sub-minimum wage. Well, as you know, the press had very uncomplimentary things to say about that proposal, but when President Bush was working with Congress on a piece of minimum wage legislation, he said, "I will not sign a bill that does not have this sub-minimum wage." He had a different name for it. The concept was the same, and I think that is the legacy. We will see that in so many, many issue areas, whether you're talking about foreign affairs, agricultural issues, bilingualism--when I say "bilingualism," I'm referring to the bilingual ballots and the maintaining of a language subgroup in this country by not teaching people English. All of these issues--his work will, I think, prove to be in the forefront of what was needed. That's my view of his legacy.

Shearer

Senator, what do you look back on with some pleasure and satisfaction about your Senate years? You're probably too modest to call it your "legacy," but maybe some of your satisfactions.

Hayakawa

Well, I will start by saying that it's the people I miss seeing most of all--people with whom I became friends, and some people with whom I did not particularly make close friends but whom I admired very much and would love to see again.

Shearer

Do you miss Senate life apart from the friends you made there?

Hayakawa

No, I really don't. As a matter of fact, I enjoyed it very, very, very much, and I would gladly serve again, but I'm just as glad not to be serving anything at the moment. No, it's a very, very worthwhile thing to serve in the Senate--you feel that you're doing something that has implications in many directions. I'm very, very proud to have taken part in it.

Shearer

Your story of the journey to North Carolina with Jesse Helms and your black staff member reminds me that you wrote a column for a black newspaper, the Chicago Defender in the forties, a time when no black newsman--or newsperson, but in those days, black newsman--was allowed in the White House at the regularly scheduled press conferences. I'm thinking what a wonderful leap forward has occurred in your lifetime--that you actually made--by taking this young staff member to North Carolina with Jesse Helms, a major power in the Senate.

Hayakawa

Jesse Helms was so courteous to her.

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Shearer

Is there anything more you would care to say about the Senate years that you feel I haven't given you an opportunity to say?

Hayakawa

The only thing I would say is simply this: [Senate service was] one of the great, great experiences of my life, and there are just so many people there, some of whom became our very good personal friends, that I really deeply admire.

Orly

I think that I might say that to serve is an honor. But far more than honor, it's such a broadening, expanding experience. I learned a great deal, but far more important than the learning was the feeling that you were doing what was right for the country. I think that's what working in the U.S. Senate provides--an opportunity to-- [pauses]

Shearer

To think in national or global terms?

Orly

Yes, to do what is best for the nation. I think that's what I carried away, and it's a tremendous feeling of satisfaction.

Shearer

Well, thank you very, very much.

Post Script on Press Relations

Shearer

One more question I have: is there anything that you would do differently if you had a chance to serve again?

Orly

Well, the one thing I might attempt to do differently is in dealing with the press in getting the word out to them of what Senator Hayakawa was doing. They made a lot of comments about him, some of which I felt never reflected the accurate picture, and so if I were to have an opportunity to do this again, I would want to do a better job in keeping the press informed as to what was being accomplished--all the various things that were being done--because I think that they provided a very narrow, limited view of the senator and his work. So I would like to think that we would do a better job with the press, because it's through the press that a lot of history is written and through the press that people accept impressions--

Hayakawa

Excuse me a moment. I had the feeling that none of the press really took the trouble to get really acquainted with me. You know, it was just these conferences to which they would come and then disappear.

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Orly

That's what I say--if we had to do it again, we might do the work with the press differently. Let me elaborate on that. When we first went back to Washington, we thought it was tremendously important to hire a press secretary who had Senate experience, because both Gene and I had not worked in the Senate. Don hadn't either, so we felt that inner circle, the top three jobs--AA, legislative director, and press secretary--that certainly the press secretary needed to have Washington Senate experience.

We hired an individual, thinking we had made an excellent choice, and, over time, we realized that she was in fact an alcoholic. This is unfortunate because, as a result, Don probably didn't get the type of press representation from his own office that he needed. The senator is a very gracious man. This woman was kept on the staff for a long time after it was very apparent that she was an alcoholic and was not performing her duties, even when it got to the point where the decision was made that something had to be done. She was sent to a detoxification facility and then came back after that. So, for the first year in office, he really didn't have a press secretary and a press operation to provide the press with the information that they probably needed.

Looking back--of course, twenty-twenty hindsight always being excellent--it was early on in his Senate career that a picture had been taken of him at a closed-door meeting where he had closed his eyes. It was that picture which started all of the press coverage about the senator sleeping--"Sleepy Sam." We didn't have the press operation in place to effectively deal with that, and so by virtue of having somebody in the job that wasn't performing the way it was necessary, Senator Hayakawa suffered. He suffered because a media image was created which was not dispelled at that time and then, as time went on, could never be altered.

[tape interruption]

Senator Hayakawa viewed the staff as--well, earlier you said that he could be described as a "humane libertarian" or something. Well, it was that humane side of him which tried to reach out, and protect, and help this individual, who was on his staff, who was an alcoholic. I do feel, looking back, that he suffered, from a public relations standpoint, very much for, basically, the goodness that he had in his heart. I would like to have dealt with the press differently. That's certainly one major aspect of it. I would have preferred an initial press secretary who was there on the job, doing the job.

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Thank you for the chance to cover this additional point.

Shearer

Well, thank you very much.

Jeanne Griffiths

DON HAYAKAWA AS BOSS, COLLEAGUE, FRIEND

Interview Conducted by Julie Gordon Shearer in 1993

Interview History--by Julie Gordon Shearer

Hayakawa's administrative aide, Jeanne Griffiths, was interviewed on January 27, 1993, to fill in the picture of Hayakawa's recent retirement years and his continuing connection with U.S. English. The slender, attractive woman whose soft southern accent belies her impressive executive ability, sat side by side with the interviewer at the senator's huge desk for an interview in his home office. Ms. Griffiths told how she had come to work for Hayakawa in 1986 and how she had confessed her ambivalence about U.S. English, fearing it might impose some limitation on immigrants' rights. She said that he impressed her greatly, first, by taking pains to allay her concerns and, second, by telling her that she did not have to agree with him to get the job. "That did it for me," she said. And she signed on.

The more she learned about Hayakawa's philosophy, the more committed she became to the goals of U.S. English. As her employer's energy and health began to fade, she took on more responsibility. Under Hayakawa's tutelage, she honed her writing skills and drafted correspondence and, occasionally, position papers for his review. She accompanied Hayakawa on lecture trips for U.S. English. Eventually, when Hayakawa was too frail to travel, she attended U.S. English board meetings, carrying a proxy from Hayakawa to be used by Stanley Diamond.

Jeanne Griffiths had observed the early strains in U.S. English that had troubled Hayakawa and Diamond. And she hinted that the John Tanton-FAIR situation had figured in the only occasion she had ever seen Hayakawa angry. She described the change in the U.S. English board shortly after Hayakawa's death as being "like a corporate takeover," remarking that it was "no longer Hayakawa's organization."

Her interview offers sensitive reflections on Don as boss and mentor and on the Hayakawa family whose home was the setting for Don's office.

Ms. Griffiths reviewed her lightly edited transcript with dispatch and returned it within two weeks with several helpful clarifications and additions.

October 1994

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

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XIV Don Hayakawa as Boss, Colleague, Friend

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Coming to Work for Senator Hayakawa

Shearer

Well, how did you start to work for Senator Hayakawa?

Griffiths

I was at a large party, and somebody said, "Do you know Senator Hayakawa" and I said, "No." They said, "He's looking for somebody. He needs somebody. And he's got an ad in the paper." They sent me a copy of it. So I answered the ad in the paper, and that's how it came about. That was in March 1986.

Shearer

This was an ad for--?

Griffiths

This was an ad in the Marin newspaper to work for him in his office in Mill Valley, in his home.

I came in, and we talked, and after the interview, he said, "The job is yours." After I came in for a couple of days, I realized that it just wasn't, really, my cup of tea. So I told him that I would come in as a consultant a couple of days a weeks, because I'm good at organizing and motivating, and I would help him to find a secretary.

I don't know why his last secretary left; but the office was in utter chaos. He needed help. He was in the midst of Proposition 63--to make English the official language of California--and traveling all over the state. The phones were ringing constantly.

So that was the way we proceeded for the next six months. I helped him to find a secretary. She came in, she worked full time. I reorganized the files, I set up forms to keep him on

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track with his travels, et cetera. I came in two afternoons a week.

Then when his full-time secretary left in December of '86, he said, "This is silly. Just come on in full time, and we'll work it out to what you like." And that's what happened.

Shearer

But he had originally been looking for a secretary--

Griffiths

Yes.

Learning about U.S. English

Shearer

So were you acquainted with Proposition 63?

Griffiths

Not really, no. I really wasn't into California politics as much as I should have been. I had heard about it, but at that time, my husband had died a few months before, and I wasn't aware of much politically at all. I wasn't really sure it was a good idea.

Shearer

Really? Did you discuss that with the senator when you were being hired?

Griffiths

Yes. [laughs] When he hired me, I said, "You know, I'm not sure that I actually agree with you about Proposition 63 and making English the official language, and I think that you should know this." He said, "Why, do you think I'm going to fire you if you disagree with me?" [laughs] And we both laughed.

And this was my first inkling of exactly the type of man he was. Then he said, "Tell me why you disagree with this issue." So I told him that having an ethnic background--my parents were born here, but my grandparents were from Russia--that I certainly didn't want to infringe on anybody's rights or customs. He assured me that that was not so, and certainly that was not his intent, that the sole purpose of U.S. English was to make English the official language, to prevent any future bilingual arrangement in the United States.

And also he felt that it was important to promote opportunities for everyone to learn English. That was uppermost in his mind. Coming from Canada, where he had seen what it is to have two official languages, he just didn't want

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that to happen here. He was really against anything that might divide one person from another.

So, after reading the literature, and particularly talking with Don, I began to realize that this is all right.

Shearer

And how long after that before you became more involved in the actual issue?

Griffiths

I was concerned with the issue immediately, because all the scheduling and work at that time was centered around Proposition 63. As I said, he was traveling constantly. He was in tremendous demand to give speeches. He was writing numerous articles and op eds [guest editorials].

Shearer

So you then stepped up your hours when the secretary left?

Griffiths

Well, actually, I stepped up my hours even before then. As we got closer to election day in November of '86, we got so busy that he did ask me to come in more often. I also occasionally went with him when he would have a speaking engagement. I believe one was in Sacramento.

And I attended the Proposition 63 victory party at Long Beach, which was lots of fun. Everybody from U.S. English was there, and a great many people from Los Angeles, a great many politicians. I cannot give you names right now--we had tremendous press coverage. It was a wonderful party. They had a band, and it was very joyous. Of course, it was a marvelous victory, 73 percent, that is just a marvelous accomplishment.

Shearer

Well, it's certainly precedent-setting. I gather there had been very few propositions that had passed with such a high percentage.

Griffiths

Oh, yes. I think that any proposition that gets over, say, 55 percent reflects an enormous statement from the people.

Correspondence and Controversy

Shearer

Had you heard about the strike at San Francisco State, or were you paying attention?

Griffiths

When the strike at San Francisco State occurred in '68, I was living in Memphis. So while we saw this on television, it was

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not a personal or close issue. What happens in California is always unique to somebody from Memphis.

Shearer

Because Californians are so--?

Griffiths

They're first with everything. They seem to be--it there's a new issue out there, California is going to be the first state to tackle it. They're forerunners.

Shearer

I understand, though, that one of your duties over the years, anyway, has been to organize and file and evaluate some of the thousands of letters that came in during that time.

Griffiths

The correspondence that comes into this office is enormous, absolutely enormous. And you have to know how to prioritize it.

Shearer

I'm thinking particularly of that very large surge of correspondence following the strike and his taking the decisive physical action of jumping on the sound truck. I realize you weren't here then, but I thought that you had a hand in combing through those letters later on.

Griffiths

That is true, yes. A few years ago, we had a huge box in the store room. And in seeing what they were, I thought, goodness, we mustn't lose these. I understand there are three more boxes at San Francisco State. Now, I have them in the office in binders. I've never seen anybody get letters like these, with people so behind his actions, so grateful, so supportive. If you look at them, they are really there for him. He was really--to the mass majority of the people, he was a hero.

Shearer

And they form just a relatively small proportion of the total amount of correspondence that poured in during your tenure.

Griffiths

Yes. They were from all over the state of California. They were from students; they were from youngsters waiting to go to college; they were from presidents of corporations, and they were from parents. Every aspect of the population is represented in these letters.

Shearer

Was that part of your introduction to Senator Hayakawa?

Griffiths

That helped me to understand Don and who he was. Not having worked with him during those trials, and not being involved when he was senator--yes, it certainly helped me to get a firm grip on who this man was.

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Job Responsibilities

Shearer

So I gather over the months of your coming in part time, you developed a closer working relationship on the issue itself? How did your views change on the issue of U.S. English, and English as the official language?

Griffiths

Well, after December 1986, my duties really changed, because then, I got into every aspect of what was going through this office.

Shearer

And what was going through this office?

Griffiths

A great deal was going through this office. This was not a man who just pursued one task at a time. While he was tremendously active in U.S. English, he was also a writer. He was writing speeches, he was also called upon to lecture. He was busy traveling. He did quite a bit of traveling at this time. He went to Washington quite a bit. He was a man in much demand.

Shearer

From various publics?

Griffiths

From various organizations. He had more invitations to speak than he could possibly accept. We work, as you can see, at this big desk, with Don sitting on one side and I'm on the other. He has his own typewriter. I have my typewriter. He would type letters himself. I would often think that it's too bad that a lot of people didn't realize that their letter from Senator Hayakawa was written by him, typed by him, and signed by him.

Shearer

And with no mistakes?

Griffiths

Oh, no, he was fine. He was a good typist.

Shearer

I understand he was good at shorthand, as well.

Griffiths

Yes, he was. When we would both attend board meetings or other functions, he would often take things down in shorthand.

Shearer

Did you find that a little intimidating?

Griffiths

No, absolutely not.

Shearer

How was he as boss?

Griffiths

To me he was unusual. I had come from the professional world, where everything is so stressful, and very organized, and

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businesslike. He thought I wrote well, but he thought I was too businesslike, that everything sounded like "Dear Sir, here is your refund," or something. [laughs] And I needed to relax.

And I said, "Well, I'm from the business world. We're very correct." And he said, "It's all right to be correct, but be friendlier." And so this I had to learn to do when I was writing for him, so that everything wasn't so stiff. It got to be friendlier. So I learned how to please him in that way, and what it was that he liked his correspondence to reflect.

Shearer

What sort of writing were you doing?

Griffiths

Correspondence, fund-raising letters, articles, and so forth. I would make the first drafts.

On correspondence I might put a note stating, "This man's concern is . . ." and then the answer would focus on that. And this would help him. But it didn't make any difference what I wrote across the top, he would read everything that came in. He was very good about that. He was very interested in everybody that wrote him.

On man was writing from jail. My goodness, a letter came from him about three months ago. He's now paroled. They kept up quite a correspondence.

Shearer

What was the man's concern?

Griffiths

Well, he was in the library and had read an article by Don. He was very impressed by it. He wanted to improve himself when he came out, and, of course, Don wrote to encourage him. Don sent him one of his books and kept up a correspondence.

It's very interesting, the way Don had a feeling for people. He didn't have to meet them or know them, or know anything about them; it didn't make any difference to him. This went on for the whole six years of my working for him. Even now a year after his death, we still get correspondence from former students and people whose lives he influenced through his writings.

Shearer

Was semantics the connection?

Griffiths

Semantics was the connection. But it's more than semantics. He was available to people. He made himself available to people. I think that's most unusual, particularly for a man as busy as he was.

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Shearer

I understand that during this period he was working on the latest edition of his Language and Thought in Action.

Griffiths

Yes. The last few years, he was on the fifth edition of Language and Thought in Action. That's true. And remember, that was in addition to all the articles he was asked to write, all of the fund-raising letters, and all of the duties he had with U.S. English--functions that he was attending.

Shearer

So his advocacy, public speaking, and articles for newspaper opinion features continued after the successful passage of Prop. 63, as U.S. English went national and initiated campaigns in other states?

Griffiths

Oh, absolutely. It was just as important, because then we were going state by state. And the membership was growing through fund raising, and the largest fund-raising letters were always those that Hayakawa wrote, that went out over his name. His name was the drawing card.

Shearer

Was his office in Mill Valley the office of U.S. English, or was there a separate office?

Griffiths

No. The office of U.S. English was always in Washington, D.C.; that is the main office. But we were in contact with them daily by phone.

Shearer

So Senator Hayakawa was really their standard-bearer.

Griffiths

Oh, absolutely. [tape interruption]

Shearer

I gather that you accompanied him while he made some of these speeches, and so you probably had a chance to observe the audiences. How did he handle hostile audiences?

Griffiths

Well, I probably was fortunate. I didn't see too much hostility. When there was, on one or two occasions, he listened, and he acknowledged the person and their right to disagree. He was so willing to answer them, and if they weren't satisfied with his answer then, he would extend a meeting afterwards if he could accommodate them. Generally, from what I saw, everyone ended up smiling and shaking hands when it was all over.

He respected anybody's opinion, whether he agreed with them or not. Of course, when it was something he believed in, he wanted to persuade them, if he could. If he couldn't, then he would say to me, "You know, there's something we're failing to do."

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Shearer

He would say this at the moment, or later?

Griffiths

Later. He would say, "You know, there's something we're failing to do. There's something that we're not getting across. If people feel that strongly, then we're not getting across the true message." He couldn't believe that to make English the official language would infringe on anyone's rights. And yet the very idea of it, he would say, of course would frighten people.

It's a very controversial issue. But he simply took the attitude if they don't understand, then we must try harder.

Shearer

What kind of correspondence came in opposing the issue? Was there any?

Griffiths

Oh, yes. There was a great deal that came in. Mostly people feeling that their rights were going to be infringed upon, that if there was an official language, that all of a sudden they're not going to be able to speak their own language, and that their personal rights are going to be taken away. And that it takes away from cultural diversity.

Actually, it [speaking a common language] helps the diversity, because it's wonderful to be able to speak with everyone. If we all don't speak English, we can't talk with one another.

Shearer

In an earlier interview Senator Hayakawa said that he hoped that more and more people would learn more and more languages--

Griffiths

Yes.

Shearer

--but that his main goal was to make available to everybody the chance to learn English, so that no one would be shut out of what at least at the present seems to be the advantage that English-speaking people have--

Griffiths

Once when we were talking about this, I was lamenting the fact that I only speak English, that I'm sorry that I don't know another language. He said, "Well, once the English language is settled, and we are confident that everyone in America is learning English and is having an opportunity to learn English, then we might think about our public schools teaching another language to our children in the early grades, in grammar school."

You could see another thought going around in his head, and that he thought it would be marvelous for all our children

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to grow up bilingual, as long as English was the common language. That was a must.

The world is getting so small that we must be able to converse. And he laughed and said, "Maybe we're all going to have to speak Japanese!" [laughter]

Shearer

He may be correct.

Working Relationship

Shearer

You said a little bit about his lack of formality as boss. One of the issues that is very much discussed today is the issue of respect for women in the workplace.

Griffiths

There was no problem here. This was an office where Don would bring down the pot of tea and the cookies. [laughing] He just didn't fit into any mold whatsoever. You just cannot put a label on him, and you cannot try to put him into a mold. I don't want you to misunderstand: a great deal of work went out of this office, and it had to be correct. When I say it was an informal office, you can look around and see the working conditions. This is an office in a home, on a floor by itself, downstairs, the walls are lined with books--

Shearer

--floor to ceiling.

Griffiths

Floor to ceiling. There's a fireplace, a beautiful view out the back over the canyon, jazz on the tape machine--we are both jazz enthusiasts. In that respect, it was informal. But the work would get done.

Shearer

What would a typical day involve?

Griffiths

Well, the mail was tremendous. First thing, like any office, the mail had to be opened, it had to be separated. Things I thought Don should see immediately were given to him. We went over the weekly schedule of events he was to attend, interviews to be given, and so forth.

We have two phone lines here, and they were constantly ringing. It was overwhelming sometimes.

##

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Griffiths

Sometimes both the lines would be ringing. If I was on a line, and it was obvious that what I was saying was important, Don would simply pick up the second line. He did not stand on ceremony. This was not the type of man who only said, "Get me so-and-so on the telephone." Sometimes he did; sometimes he didn't. He would just as soon pick up the phone and start dialing. These little niceties--he just didn't need--this was not important to him.

Shearer

Did you ever feel that you had to protect him against his own informality?

Griffiths

No. No, I don't believe I did. This was a man capable of handling any situation that came up. [laughing] I think you can tell that, too, through having met him through all the interviews and being with him so much. I never really saw him at a loss for words. He seemed to handle everything very, very well, and always lightly, and with a good sense of humor.

Shearer

There must have been some instances where his patience was tried.

Griffiths

Oh, yes. Yes, of course there were.

Shearer

In fact, even he has said that he had a temper. Did you ever see any of this?

Griffiths

Just once in all that time, I heard him on the telephone really being very, very angry with very good cause with someone who had done something that just should never have been done, and which they had been informed not to do. I was quite stunned, because I had never heard him talk quite so fiercely as he did, and so adamantly. There was no doubt that he had the courage of his convictions. He gave everybody the benefit of the doubt, and he gave them every chance possible.

Shearer

This is an employment situation?

Griffiths

In an employment situation, or even in an organizational situation. If it had to be done for the good of the whole, he did it.

Shearer

Meaning taking firm or severe action?

Griffiths

When it was called for, he could take firm action, yes. He may be this wonderful, informal, understanding man to work for, but when the time came when he had to be firm, he was firm. We sometimes forget, he's so pleasant and always so witty, that there are strong convictions, and there is a strong will there.

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Shearer

Would you describe him as someone who had a long memory for a slight or an injury?

Griffiths

No. Absolutely not. He would disagree with people. Nothing seemed to bother him that way. I don't think that he carried a grudge or anything of this nature, no. He would just say, "I just don't agree with him," or "he just simply doesn't agree with me," and this was the way it was.

He was not a man that went out there looking for a conflict. I never heard him really speak ill of anyone in that regard. Disagree with them, yes. Say they were wrong, yes.

Shearer

I think in a previous conversation, I heard you say that he was no saint.

Griffiths

No, he was no saint.

Shearer

[laughs] Can I press you on that point?

Griffiths

Well, I refer back to this telephone conversation, which I must tell you he minced no words. It was the only time I really heard him lose his temper, and state unequivocally that he just wasn't going to stand for it.

One other thing that impressed me about working with Don, and the atmosphere in the office was that he never minded being interrupted.

Shearer

By you, or--

Griffiths

By me, or by the telephone, if the telephone rang and someone wanted to talk to him, and I could see he was working very hard on a speech, he never let me take a message. He'd put down his pencil and take the phone. And if I had a question to ask, I didn't have to wait, all I had to say was, "Don, may I ask you a question?" "Sure," and he'd lay down his pencil. I'd ask him the question, and then he'd pick up his task and go right on writing.

I thought that was unusual, because most people would say, "Wait, I need to finish this page." But he seemed to have the ability to be interrupted, and afterwards to pick up without a moment's hesitation and just continue writing or typing, whichever he would be doing at that moment. I don't know why that impressed me so, but it did. It made me very comfortable to work with him.

Shearer

And you were working on opposite sides of the desk?

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Griffiths

Yes, as you can see: I'm working here, and Don would work right across this wide desk, so that we were just almost facing each other.

Shearer

Is this that big desk that Marge and Don used back in Chicago?

Griffiths

No, but this is a desk almost like that. As you can see it's not a desk; it's a huge board, with a desk underneath holding it up. And so it's quite wide, and quite long, and it's quite messy.

Shearer

Actually, there's room for two people on each side.

Griffiths

Yes, four people could work at this desk. It works very well.

Shearer

So he had quite reliable powers of concentration?

Griffiths

Yes, he did.

Shearer

I wonder if that's the result of training. I mean, having a home office, I think, makes you a little bit more vulnerable to interruptions from your family.

Griffiths

Probably so. From what I understand, when the children were little, they would come in and play, while he would work. It never seemed to bother him, so I'm sure that he worked in a relaxed atmosphere, and just carried it through all of his life.

Family Relationships

Shearer

Since you've worked here, I guess, Wynne and Alan, of course are grown and gone, but Mark is still here. Have you had a chance to seen how Mark and Don were as a son and father?

Griffiths

Oh, they were very loving. Mark is just such a sweet young man. And very polite. I remember when I first met him, how he shook hands. And Don was just a marvelous father.

I remember one incident when, for some reason, Daisy was gone, and Marge was gone. Don and I were working downstairs, and of course, Mark was upstairs. The power failed, and all the lights went out.

We immediately went upstairs to the living room, and went to check on Mark. Mark was very upset because his television

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wouldn't work. His stereo wouldn't work. And his radio wouldn't work. And this is so important to him.

Don tried to explain to him that the power was out, and nothing would work. But Mark, of course, just couldn't understand. Don turned to me and he had tears in his eyes. He said, "It's terrible. He doesn't understand, and I don't know what to do for him." And I was very touched by this. I do remember that--I said, "Come, Mark, let's play the piano." So I took him to the piano, and we were playing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star," and that kept him busy for about ten minutes or so, and seemed to calm him a little bit.

But I remember that Don was very upset. They were obviously--he was a very, very loving family man.

Shearer

Did this take place during a storm, is that how you--?

Griffiths

Yes. It was very windy and raining very hard. With all the trees around here, it's just really not that unusual for a tree to fall and knock the wires out.

Shearer

Yes. I imagine it's very dramatic, too.

Griffiths

It is dramatic. And everything goes out. It's so beautiful here, but that's one of the prices you pay.

Development of U.S. English

Shearer

Tell me a little bit more about the development of the organization of U.S. English during the time you worked for Don. I've read that Don was the initiator of the idea of English as the official language of the United States when he introduced the English Language Amendment in 1981, and that he and John Tanton co-founded U.S. English in 1983.

Griffiths

Yes. I think this was brought up in Stanley Diamond's interview, that they came to Don--they needed Don to really get U.S. English organized. They wanted Don's name and leadership to give the organization credibility. Don's name carries great weight. People trust him.

Actually, at that time it's my understanding that John Tanton would have been the prime organizer with Don and, to me, they would be the co-founders.

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Shearer

This would be in 1983.

Griffiths

And then, actually all the original directors would be almost co-founders, because these were the people who initially got it started as the U.S. English organization in 1983. As I recall, Don has always held the title of honorary chairman.

Shearer

Is there an actual chairman?

Griffiths

As far as I can remember, Stanley Diamond was chairman, or perhaps Tanton might have been chairman at first, and then Stanley Diamond went in as chairman.

Shearer

Well, I recall in Don's interview with Stanley Diamond, that he and Stanley both said that they wanted to make clear that the organization was at a distance from the organization FAIR [Federation for American Immigration Reform], of which John Tanton, I guess, is the head.

Griffiths

In my conversations with Don about U.S. English organization and English as the official language, Don stated to me that when they first came to him to put his name to this organization, the only thing he worried about was he did not want U.S. English to have anything to do with Tanton's organization--FAIR--which deals with controlling immigration.

Now, the bylaws of U.S. English stipulate that the only goals of U.S. English are to designate English as the official language of the United States, and to promote opportunities for everyone to learn English. Nowhere is immigration a part of that program because, according to Don, immigration is a federal issue, and that is not what he wanted to get into.

It's also my understanding from Don, that the people who approached Don made it very clear to him that there would be no cross-over between John Tanton's groups and U.S. English. They felt that the one had nothing to do with the other, and this [immigration] issue was just something else that Tanton strongly believed in. And that was the way Don explained it.

Unfortunately, a few years ago [1988] a controversial memo that John Tanton had written for FAIR was made public and caused much harm to U.S. English, as Tanton was not only the head of FAIR but also director of U.S. English. The Hispanic community took great offense at his memo (which was very uncomplimentary). For that reason, Linda Chavez, who was then the executive director of U.S. English, resigned. Don was very upset about this and wrote a letter to the directors of U.S. English stating unequivocally that the two organizations could

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not be linked in any way. That John Tanton's association with FAIR was bad for U.S. English, and that it just was not possible to keep the two groups separate as long as Tanton was associated with both.

And then he went on in his letter to say that anyone, whether they be a director or an employee of U.S. English who was associated in any way with any of the Tanton's organizations would have to resign or would be dismissed. He felt that strongly--

Shearer

He thought that dual membership was a threat to U.S. English?

Griffiths

He felt that it was a threat to the organization, and that it was an association that U.S. English could not bear, and that it gave the wrong signals from U.S. English. It was not good. It wasn't appropriate.

Shearer

Was he worried that Hispanics particularly, who were an everlarger group in the population and who were opposing U.S. English, might think that one of the goals of U.S. English was to curtail their immigration?

Griffiths

Oh, absolutely, because your opponents will state, "Well, while U.S. English says this is their only agenda, they have hidden agendas. And what they mean by the hidden agendas is probably controlling immigration." Or anything that would adversely affect minority groups. Don said that this apparent connection to FAIR is just fueling the opposition. The allegation of immigration control is untrue. But to say it's untrue and stay associated with these people is to contradict yourself. He just--he was very, very upset about this.

Shearer

So he was opposed to any member of the board of U.S. English being a board member of an organization for immigration policy reforms.

Griffiths

Yes. He was against any board member or any employee being associated with FAIR. He didn't want anybody from U.S. English writing articles for FAIR. He didn't want them to be on an editorial staff of FAIR. He didn't think that you could do this and say, I am working for U.S. English, this is what I believe, and then work for FAIR and say, "This is what I believe." He said, "This is a very, very controversial, sensitive issue. It doesn't work to say one thing when you're acting in an adverse way."

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We did have to ask a director to resign from U.S. English because that director decided not to disassociate from the FAIR organization.

Shearer

So Senator Hayakawa asked, or required, in this letter that the board members who were members of both or associated in any way either divest themselves of membership in FAIR or resign from U.S. English.

Griffiths

Exactly, yes.

Shearer

And was that, then, what led to the recent reconstitution of the board?

Griffiths

No, it didn't. We did lose a very good board member at that time, because as I said, that board member made a choice to leave.

The takeover of the organization didn't happen until after Hayakawa's death.

Shearer

How?

Griffiths

After he died, then--well, you might compare it to a corporate takeover. And while I no longer have any ties with U.S. English, it is my understanding that the directors of U.S. English who sided with Don in separating from FAIR have all been terminated, and that members of the current board are also associated with FAIR.

Shearer

So U.S. English really has a different character, in your opinion?

Griffiths

In my opinion, it is no longer Hayakawa's U.S. English.

Shearer

Does Senator Hayakawa's name still appear in the organization's literature?

Griffiths

I have no idea. I see nothing that goes out. I don't know what Marge intends to do about this. We both feel very uncomfortable that they might be using his name.

Shearer

So what has changed?

Griffiths

With a brand new board of directors, I imagine that policies are different as well as programs and agendas.

Shearer

At this point, I gather there's not a lot you can do.

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Griffiths

No, there's nothing any of us can do. As you know, there's nobody left with Hayakawa's point of view. It's a completely new board of directors. It's a shame because this organization is only ten years old, and has done so much in such a few years.

Private View of the Public Man

Shearer

Senator Hayakawa's term in office had ended by the time you met him. But he had become well known nationally and internationally. He was known as a maverick senator. He seemed to prefer a sardonic quip to a formal policy statement, and I gather that got him into trouble sometimes. The public and his colleagues seemed often puzzled at his actions, which seemed inconsistent. You have seen him work for U.S. English as the public man. You certainly saw him as the private man. Now, I know that you don't like labels, and he certainly spent his whole life trying to liberate us from labels, but how would you label him, or begin to label him?

Griffiths

[laughs] Well, Don simply did not take himself as seriously as other successful men take themselves. And so to him, a little bit of humor was wonderful. I think probably [laughing] he would be surprised when they didn't see the humor in it, that they were so serious.

I remember reading a speech he wrote to the press club right after he was elected senator, and in his opening remarks he says how being a senator changes the way people treat you. That now everybody says, "Oh, yes, Senator," "No, Senator," "Of course, Senator," "You're right, Senator." He says, "Now, everybody thinks you're as smart as you always knew you were!" [laughter]

He just saw everything in good humor. Not that he didn't take his duties seriously. He simply did not need all of the trappings that most politicians want to have.

Shearer

Interesting.

Griffiths

Yes, it was wonderful. And I think that's what made people gravitate to him. He was so approachable. He could not walk down the street without being stopped. It was impossible to go into a hotel without being stopped at least a half a dozen times.In a letter (2/23/93) to Norman Shumway, then chairman of U.S. English, Mrs. Hayakawa stated her wish to "sever all ties with this new group. . . ." and that "S. I. Hayakawa's name is to be taken off all [U.S. English] stationery, and that his name is not to be used in any way to promote the policies or programs of this new group. . . ."

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Shearer

By people who wanted to greet him?

Griffiths

By people who had never met him but knew who he was, by people who had taken a class with him, by somebody whose son had taken a class, or someone he had corresponded with. It was very heartwarming. It was wonderful except at the airport, when we were trying to make a plane and people would stop him. He was so calm and never rushed anybody. Somehow we made the plane, and he was calm, and I would just be on the verge of having a heart attack! But that went on all the time.

I remember one time Marge, Don, and I were going to Washington. When we got to the airport, the porter recognized Don, and told him his son had taken his class, and now he was a lawyer. The porter went on to thank Don and would not accept a tip, saying he and his son were indebted to Don. It was very moving.

Shearer

You've told me a little about how he was as a father.

Griffiths

Oh, yes. He was always interested in what his children were doing and very proud of them. Don, to me, was a complete man. Even more than that, he was a complete human being. He never--the rest of us, or so many of us, we tend to look to others to verify who we are or what we are, or what we should be. I never got that feeling from Don. He just seemed to accomplish everything that he wanted to do, but not in a hurried or competitive way. He just simply did it. I think that whatever Don would have decided to become, he would have been a success at.

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Shearer

You also observed the Hayakawas as a couple. How were they together?

Griffiths

Oh, they were wonderful. When you think of a marriage as two partners or two companions, that's the way I see Don and Marge. I mean, it was obvious that they loved each other, but it was more than that. They enjoyed each other. You would see them in discussions over the newspaper or an article in a magazine. They obviously respected one another's opinion. They were a couple, in every sense of the word. It was a partnership.

Of course, it was a marriage of, what, fifty-four years? I've spoken to Marge too about having married Don, a Japanese man, back when--goodness, this must have been just so unusual, that they must have really been in love. It was obvious, even with their children, they built such a strong foundation. That foundation never crumbled.

I just don't think you see this very often, where two people just go through life--I would almost say like they were accommodating one another. They really made room for one another, for Marge to pursue her writings as an editor for the horticultural magazines, and the other projects, such as co-ops, that she was interested in, and for Don to pursue the careers that he was interested in. I think that's a true partnership.

Shearer

It's remarkable, too, that their marriage seemed to assume that character so long ago, when so many of us are still struggling with the idea of equal partnership in marriages and relationships in the 1990s.

Griffiths

Yes, I think so. I would imagine that they started out like this from the very beginning, on a very firm footing. Heaven knows, they had nothing in common in their backgrounds. They only had what they felt in common, and who they were, not who their parents were, but just who they were. I think that's quite remarkable.

Shearer

Yes, it is.

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Letter

October 10, 1990

Mr. Stanley Diamond, Chairman

U.S. English

P. O. Box 27144

San Francisco, CA 94127

Dear Stanley,

As we have discussed recently (and often in the past), the publicity we received from the disclosure of John Tanton's paper on immigration, and the subsequent resignation of Linda Chavez, are blows from which U.S. English will never fully recover.

Our past association with John and personal feelings are hard to put aside, but I am convinced that there should not be any public ties between our staff, directors or any one connected with U.S. English with any Tanton group. We asked Bob Park to resign from FAIR before accepting our invitation to join the board, and he consented to do this.

I regret I am not able to travel to Washington and attend the retreat and board meeting. A few days ago I fell off a step ladder and bruised my ribs. I am feeling better, although it is still painful. I do not plan to do any more ladder climbing!

P.S. I feel very strongly about this Accept this as my vote to dismiss any member of our staff or board who is associated with any Tanton organization. S. I. H.

With best regards, Sincerely,

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Lively Retirement

Shearer

It's pretty clear from what you've told me so far that Don's retirement was not quiescent; he was involved in writing, and correspondence and, I gather visitors, colleagues and so forth. Still, it is a big change to go from the Senate to Mill Valley and your home office. Also after '87, did things kind of die down a little bit for U.S. English?

Griffiths

Well, things never did die down for U.S. English. After the victory in '86, U.S. English grew rapidly. Don's participation in U.S. English changed around 1990 as he wasn't able to travel during the last couple of years. But as far as retirement, I don't think Don ever retired. Although he came back to Mill Valley and to his office right here, he simply kept right on with his interests. He worked on the fifth edition of Language and Thought in Action and other writings that he was in demand for. This man's interests and capacity for life were unlimited.

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I remember going with him to the Asian Art Museum for an interview on videotape for the Asian Art Museum. He was wonderful. And he was constantly being called upon, being sought out, by organizations, not only in California but throughout the country.

The only thing that really changed, I would say, would be the traveling, because his doctor didn't allow him to travel. But his interests didn't wane in any way. As far as board meetings for U.S. English, we would get the board book ahead of time, we would go over the policies together and what was coming up. He would write out any statement he had to make. Sometimes I went to the meetings and participated in his behalf, if he had a statement he wanted to make, it was made. I brought notes home to him, and he kept up that way.

Shearer

How about votes? He knew ahead of time what the votes would be, and he would--

Griffiths

If we knew what they were going to vote on, generally then we would type up a proxy. Then the proxy would be given to Stanley Diamond.

I think that it would have been one of the fulfillments of his life if he could have seen the language issue settled in his lifetime, and particularly the educational system settled, because, in my opinion, he was a teacher above all.

Shearer

As opposed to--

Griffiths

As opposed to a politician, yes. I would say he was a teacher. I think when you read any of his writings, he writes so clearly and so definitively, he makes you think. This is the sign of a good teacher.

Shearer

And not necessarily the sign of a good politician, or a successful politician?

Griffiths

Well, yes it is. But I don't think Don knew how to play politics. I mean, the very fact that he fell asleep in the Senate, and the press ran away with this. When I asked him about that, he said, "I have very weak eyes, as you know, and I could not stand the lights in there, so I kept my eyes shut."

Now, it's something as simple as this, but he said, "You see, when you're in politics, that's not what they want to hear." I said, "Well, why did you keep on closing your eyes if you knew that?" He said, "Because I have very weak eyes, and the lights hurt my eyes." And that was the way he felt. I'm

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sure he must have given his staff fits. He simply would not play the game.

So in my estimation, he would be a statesman, yes. Politician, no. He's not going to play games like that, he's just not.

Confronting Illness

Shearer

When I first met him in March of 1989, he was wearing this little oxygen attachment for his lung condition, so I gather that was the reason he had to stop traveling.

Griffiths

Yes.

Shearer

How did he deal with his illness?

Griffiths

He never complained. At first, he simply went on as before, wearing the oxygen. We even traveled with the oxygen; we could arrange for it to be on the plane, and we could arrange for it to be in a hotel room. He never complained. He never got angry with it, he never refused to put it on. He sometimes forgot it.

Shearer

I had the feeling he didn't exactly enjoy it.

Griffiths

Oh, I'm sure he didn't enjoy it. It must have been a terrible nuisance. But he did not complain. He didn't seem to waste his time complaining about things that couldn't be helped.

Shearer

How did his illness affect his energy and--

Griffiths

Well, in the last year, of course he got weaker. He had lapses of memory. Yet his personality didn't change. He didn't become short-tempered with you because you'd say something and he couldn't remember. He would sit there, and I would simply refresh his memory. I'd give him a copy of a letter, for example. He would read it, and he would say, "Now, refresh my memory. What brought this about?" And after we discussed it for a few minutes, then it would dawn--everything would come back.

Also, if someone met him or called him on the phone and introduced himself, and Don hadn't seen that gentleman or person in a year or so, the name wouldn't mean anything. But if you knew to refresh his memory, give him a few moments, and

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explain in what regard he knew you, then it would come back. Of course, a lot of people didn't realize, and unfortunately maybe their feelings were hurt.

You have to remember that Don had met thousands and thousands of people throughout his career, in Washington and in California and throughout his travels. People would write a letter or call and say, "I'm so-and-so, I sat next to Senator Hayakawa in 1980, I'm sure he'll remember me." Of course, the caller remembers this meeting because this is a big event in his life he'll never forget.

So at the end of a lifetime, all of this I'm sure got jumbled together, and then with the lack of oxygen, it would make it hard to remember. But what you had to do was simply have patience.

Shearer

What did you learn from Don?

Griffiths

To try not to be judgmental, to try to listen to people. I've never known a man who listened as well as he did. Those two things I really learned, or I'm trying to learn, from him. You can't help but admire him for simply the way he looked at life, not from anybody's eyes but his own.

Political Philosophy and Party Registration

Shearer

Did he ever talk to you about why he changed his registration?

Griffiths

Yes, I asked him once. I was teasing him, being a Democrat all my life. I said to him, "Don, how can you be a Republican when you talk like a Democrat? You're definitely pro-abortion, you have such a feel for people. What made you change your registration?"

So he told me that after the riot at San Francisco State, the only people who came to his assistance were the Republicans. He was very surprised at this. He said, "Ronald Reagan," who was governor then, "was just wonderful." And he said that the people that were against him seemed to be the Democrats, and he felt like he was with the wrong party, because those that were supporting him and seemed to understand how he felt were Republicans.

He said that his feeling is that a university, a college, a school, is like a monastery, and must not be violated. He

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felt very strongly about that. And that is why he switched over, and of course, ran for senator on the Republican ticket. And that's what brought that on.

He stayed a loyal Republican, but he maintained that his convictions are simply his, whether they be consensus with the Democratic party or with the Republican party really didn't make much difference.

He liked Reagan. He thought he was a very personable person, which I'm sure he is, a very likable man, was the way Don put it.

He was a great admirer of Barry Goldwater's. He didn't agree with everything that Barry Goldwater supported but he liked Barry Goldwater as a person.

He liked Dan Quayle. He said that Dan Quayle was getting very unfair reviews. Don's desk in the Senate was close to Quayle's. Don said Quayle was a very bright young man.

He expressed admiration for Robert Dole; he also expressed admiration for Edward Kennedy. Don said he was one of the hardest-working senators that we had. So he really looked more at the man than at the party, which is good. Sometimes I simply cannot reconcile the way people perceive Senator Hayakawa.

Shearer

How so?

Griffiths

Well, when I went to work for Hayakawa, I must tell you that I had some people say, "How can you work for that man? He's a racist."

I said, "Well, what are you talking about? A racist! I have never known a more non-judgmental, non-racist person in all my life." And then I would begin to tell them about Don. And after a while, they would begin to come over a little. Whether they came all the way or not is hard to tell.

But it is tragic that a person in public life cannot be seen as the person he really is. I think there's very few people have been able to accomplish this.

Shearer

Who has, do you think?

Griffiths

Hubert Humphrey, maybe in a way, was able to do this. Adlai Stevenson. Of course, he got defeated, and he got defeated because he stayed true to his own form.

---

Shearer

What will you miss about Don, now that he's gone?

Griffiths

Oh, I miss his presence. His presence really does have a tremendous influence on you, but not because he stood on a stage and yelled platitudes at you. He simply sat there day after day, being who he was, and you find yourself soaking this up. I miss that. I think of so many things I wish I had asked him about that I haven't. I wish I had known him in the Senate years. I think I miss the feedback. I miss all that I had to learn from him yet. Of course, that's being very selfish.

I strongly feel that if he had not gotten ill, he would have pursued another career. I really think that he would have found something else to do.

Shearer

Sounds to me as though he pursued--and exhausted--[laughs] almost all the things you can think of.

Griffiths

No, I think if he had stayed in good health, he would have stayed active in U.S. English, of course, but knowing Don, I wouldn't be surprised if he wouldn't have found some little something else to champion, because he had a capacity for everything.

Shearer

Thank you very much.

Daisy Roseborough

FORTY-FOUR YEARS OF "MARRIAGE" TO THE HAYAKAWAS

Interview Conducted by Julie Gordon Shearer in 1993

Interview History--by Julie Gordon Shearer

Daisy Roseborough's comment that "nobody's talked about what I know about Mr. Hayakawa" prompted an invitation to contribute an interview to the volume. The Hayakawa's live-in housekeeper of forty-four years is a collector of kindnesses and fond memories of the Hayakawa family. Her hour-long interview on November 17, 1992, took place in the Hayakawa living room. It reveals the mutual affection and high regard between the stately African-American woman and the family she chose to "marry." She described in detail how the Hayakawas had paid the college tuition for her niece, Julie Pope, and housed her while she attended San Francisco State, with Marge getting up early to fix her breakfast before she left for class.

Arriving in the Hayakawa household in Chicago shortly after the birth of their first-born son Alan, Daisy cared for Mark and Wynne as well. But her special pal was, and still is, Mark, who was born with Downs syndrome. Now well into middle age, Mark lives at his parents' home with his mother and Daisy, with whom he bowls regularly. She characterized various childhood penchants of the three young Hayakawas, carefully noting that their parents never interfered with her discipline, or lack of it.

When pressed to recall the famous visitors to the house--Langston Hughes, Mahalia Jackson, Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway, Daisy spoke enthusiastically but briefly about Hughes. It was clear that she had little interest in or regard for jazz musicians or jazz. Most of her editing eliminated questions on this topic. She held a similar opinion of politicians. She preferred to ignore Hayakawa's stint in the Senate. "He was an educator, not a politician," she declared firmly.

The lightly edited transcript was sent to her for review and she returned it with her editing within two weeks.

October 1994

Regional Oral History Office
The Bancroft Library
University of California, Berkeley

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XV Forty-Four Years of "Marriage" to the Hayakawas

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##

Shearer

This is November 17, and I am interviewing Daisy Roseborough, who has been--actually, how would you describe your role in the Hayakawa household?

Roseborough

Housekeeper. For forty-four years.

Shearer

How did you come to the Hayakawas?

Roseborough

Through my sister in-law. I was working for another family, and my sister-in-law was working for the Hayakawas.

Shearer

This is Mary Walker?

Roseborough

Mary Walker, right. She wanted me to work for the Hayakawas, too, because she said they are such nice people. And the people I was with were very, very nice, too. Somehow or another, she and my brother got me with the Hayakawas.

Shearer

And when you arrived at the Hayakawa household, how old was Alan?

Roseborough

Two.

Shearer

At that point, was Mark about to be born?

Roseborough

No, it was quite a little while before Mark was born.

Shearer

What do you recall of your first few days there?

Roseborough

Very nice. I had met Mrs. Hayakawa quite a few times before then, and Mr. Hayakawa, too. It was very nice. My sister-in-law was working there. She was the house cleaner. When I first started, Mrs. Hayakawa and I sat down and talked

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and she told me that I had Thursdays and Sundays off. It came down to holidays. She said, "Now, there are two major holidays; Thanksgiving and Christmas." She said, "Now, I would like to have Christmas and you can have Thanksgiving." So I have never had to work on Thanksgiving, but always on Christmas. That's fine with me.

Shearer

I gather this was a very busy household, both then-professor Hayakawa and Mrs. Hayakawa had many outside activities.

Roseborough

Yes. Mr. Hayakawa was with the Illinois Institute of Technology and Mrs. Hayakawa was a volunteer on the staff of Poetry magazine and edited a newspaper for co-ops in the midwest. So I was there with Alan.

Shearer

This was what year, then?

Roseborough

Alan was born July 16, 1946 so this would be around 1948. Mark was born February 6, 1949 and Wynne was born on May 27, 1951. Wynne's birth was premature and she remained in the hospital for several weeks.

Shearer

So you were on the scene right after Mark was born?

Roseborough

Yes. The hospital sent Mark home before Mrs. Hayakawa because she had a blood clot so they kept her in the hospital. Mark was home for almost three weeks before she came home.

Shearer

I see. So you were taking care of him completely?

Roseborough

Mark, yes.

Shearer

What do you remember about Mark as a baby?

Roseborough

He was a sweet baby--very easy--not at all demanding.

Shearer

When did it become evident to the family and to you that there was something unusual about Mark?

Roseborough

Mark was almost a year old when we really discovered something might be wrong because--you know how when you hold babies they bounce up, but he had weak limbs. Little things that babies do he didn't do.

Shearer

That must have been a very difficult time for both parents.

Roseborough

Yes it was.

---

Shearer

Did you have any experience in this area of children, their normal development patterns? Were you able to say, "Goodness, this seems unusual"?

Roseborough

Quite naturally, it bothered me, but not to that extent. Now when we found that Mark had Downs Syndrome, all the love I had went to him. That's my boy!

Shearer

To Mark?

Roseborough

Yes. Oh, I love the other kids, too, but Mark was special. Still is.

Shearer

I see that you are pals to this day.

Roseborough

Yes, he is still my best friend.

Shearer

I read somewhere that you can judge a society by how well it treats its most vulnerable, weakest members. Maybe you can judge a family by how it treats its least able child. How would you say that--

Roseborough

Oh, they were wonderful with Mark. They never pressured him to do anything he didn't want to do. If he didn't want to do it, then that was it. They included him in every phase of whatever the family did. He was one of them; he was there. He was never left out of anything. In all of our travels, he would be right there. Every summer Mr. Hayakawa would teach at some university and he would always take the family; we would all go along with him. One year we went to New York. When we lived in Chicago we'd come out here (to San Francisco) and he taught once or twice at the University of Hawaii.

Mark and his father--it was a very, very close relationship. Mr. Hayakawa would go fishing and he'd take Mark. Their favorite place was Pt. Reyes. Mark loves fish.

Recollections of Life in Chicago

Shearer

What do you remember from the early days in Chicago? This was in the Hyde Park Boulevard apartment.

Roseborough

It was nice. There was a park called Madison right in back of the apartment house. It had jungle gyms and everything for kids, and I would take them there. Then, on Outer Drive,

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next to the lake, there was a park which had sand to play in. We had a baby buggy and the three of them (Alan was big then) would all ride in the buggy. [laughs] If it seemed like it was going to rain, Alan would be in the buggy holding the umbrella, going down the street.

Shearer

He was about--let's see, Alan must have been five, six at that time, right?

Roseborough

Yes. All three of them in the buggy.

Well-known Guests

Shearer

In those early days, you had your hands full, of course, with taking care of three children. I gather the household continued to be very lively in terms of people coming in to visit.

Roseborough

Yes. And I have notes here about our house. There was a poem, "The House by the Side of the Road, a Friend to Man." That was our house. It was every week, two or three times a week, someone was there.

Shearer

I gather there were some famous people.

Roseborough

Yes. Now someone who stayed with us, and he had just started out to be a writer; that was Langston Hughes.

Shearer

Really? He stayed with you?

Roseborough

Yes. I never will forget him because he didn't have a necktie. He was just a young writer. He came and we had guests for dinner that night. I always used to be very picky about when you come to the dinner table and so I went down the hall to tell them to get ready for dinner. I came on back and I turned around and Mr. Hughes was coming down the hall with this sport shirt on.

Shearer

And no tie?

Roseborough

No tie. I stopped him and I said, "Just a minute. You need a tie," and he didn't have a tie. So I went to Mr. Hayakawa's closet and I got him a tie. He put on a necktie and came on to dinner. Mr. Hayakawa took one look at him and said, "Isn't that my tie?" [laughter] "That's my best tie!"

---

Shearer

And Mr. Hayakawa was also wearing a tie?

Roseborough

Yes.

Shearer

So it was the standard of the household as well as your high standards that you were meeting?

Roseborough

Yes.

Shearer

That's a wonderful story. And Professor Hayakawa knew very well, of course, that it was his tie?

Roseborough

Yes, he knew that. But he never objected. That's one thing I could do. I could go and get anything from his closet. He never objected, especially if I had something that needed cuff links. He had some beautiful cuff links. He loved for you to admire something he had that was good. He didn't mind at all. He was just that kind of a person.

Shearer

Langston Hughes. I am wondering if that was during the time when he and Langston Hughes were fellow columnists on the Chicago Defender.

Roseborough

Maybe so.

Shearer

Who else do you remember coming to the house in the way of notable guests? I think you mentioned Frederick March?

Roseborough

Yes. I remember him and Langston Hughes and Larry Adler and, let's see, who else was--

Shearer

Now, Larry Adler, who was he?

Roseborough

He was a harmonica player.

Shearer

A harmonica player?

Roseborough

Yes, he was the world's greatest harmonica player.

Shearer

And how did he happen to come to the house?

Roseborough

I don't know how Mr. Hayakawa met Mr. Adler. I should have asked Mr. Hayakawa about that, but I knew Mr. Adler. He lived in England and he would come over for concerts and he gave me a free ticket to come to hear him. He was really good.

Shearer

Did Mr. Hayakawa play the harmonica at that point?

---

Roseborough

Oh, he was going up and down the hall playing away! [laughter] He had a small harmonica that he played all of the time.

Mr. Hayakawa's Musical Interests

Shearer

What other instruments did he play?

Roseborough

Oh, he was always on something or the other, a piano and--what do you call that thing?

Shearer

A mandolin?

Roseborough

Yes. He wasn't too much on the guitar, but that little round one--

Shearer

A banjo?

Roseborough

Yes, a banjo. He played that. Then, see our rug there, [points to room off living room] it's cut out. You can roll it up and you have a hard floor. He tap-danced. He had the shoes and taps. [laughter]

Shearer

Did he take lessons or did he just--?

Roseborough

I don't know whether he took lessons or not. I guess not. He just took it up. One of his favorite tap-dancers was Fred Astaire.

Shearer

One of his interests that you mentioned and that I've heard other people mention, is in jazz. How did he touch your life in jazz or gospel music?

Roseborough

Well, the gospel singing was all right with me, but when it came down to the jazz, I didn't have anything to do with that. I didn't care too much for the jazz business. But he loved it and all of them old jazz singers and players. Some of them were very poor. Especially Big Crawford, who played the bass fiddle, because he was kind of like an alcoholic, but Mr. Hayakawa hung in there with him and got him a job at Warners bookstore in downtown in Chicago, and Crawford came out to be somebody. He turned his life around, because there wasn't anyone who would hire him before.

Shearer

How about Jimmy Yancy and Mama Yancy? Did you meet them through--?

---

Roseborough

Well, I met Mrs. Yancy. Oh, I met Mr. Yancy, too, once or a couple of times. He worked at the White Sox Ballpark.

Shearer

One of the grounds keepers?

Roseborough

Yes. Mrs. Yancy, every Saturday night, would give these big chitlin parties and Mr. Hayakawa-- I told him, I said, "If you can go over there on Saturday nights and eat Mama Yancy's chitlins--" [laughter] Whether he liked them or not--. Well, that's another thing I never heard him say, "I don't like this."

Shearer

He was adventurous in his eating?

Roseborough

He loved food. He was a very good cook.

Shearer

Yes, I understand that.

Roseborough

He was very good.

Shearer

Who did the cooking in the house?

Roseborough

All of us.

Shearer

I see.

Roseborough

It wasn't just put down for me to cook. Mrs. Hayakawa was another very good cook. Everybody cooked. But when Mr. Hayakawa cooked something that was real good, I asked him, "Well, how did you fix that?" He said, "You give me $5 and I'll give you the recipe." [laughter]

Shearer

So did Mrs. Hayakawa join him at the chitlin parties or was it something only he did?

Roseborough

No, Mrs. Hayakawa just stood there shaking her head, saying, "Chitlins? Uh-uh." [laughter]

Shearer

You mentioned another musician, a jazz musician, Slim--

Roseborough

Memphis Slim?

Shearer

Yes, Memphis Slim. Now, how did he come into things?

Roseborough

Well, he and Big Crawford and quite a few others--Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington--you know, that were in the jazz business--I don't know how Mr. Hayakawa met them but he knew them all.

---

Shearer

Were they visitors at the house?

Roseborough

Once in a while, yes.

Shearer

So you actually met Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway?

Roseborough

Yes. And then in Chicago, there was a theater, called the Regent Theater, that would have these jazz concerts.

Shearer

Was the theater segregated at that point?

Roseborough

No.

Shearer

So the audience could be racially mixed?

Roseborough

That's right.

Shearer

You mentioned Mahalia Jackson as being somebody Senator Hayakawa really appreciated. Did she visit?

Roseborough

Oh, yes indeed. Very much so.

Shearer

How do you remember her?

Roseborough

Well, I can remember Miss Jackson. She was nice, very nice, and she could really sing. She was one of the greatest, I believe, gospel singers. She sang for President Kennedy and also for Robert Kennedy and she sung for Martin Luther King, Jr., and she would go abroad, too, to give concerts.

Mr. Hayakawa's Sense of Humor

Roseborough

When he was teaching at San Francisco State, he would usually call when he was going to bring somebody home to dinner. Well, he called and it was late. He said, "I'm bringing so-and-so." I said, "What, at this late date?" He said, "Yes, what are you having?" I said, "Well--". He said, "Well, if you don't have enough, open a can of sardines." I said, "What?" He said, "Well, I like them."

Shearer

Who was it who showed up that night?

Roseborough

Well, it was one of the professors, and I forget now just who it was.

Shearer

He wouldn't have served sardines?

---

Roseborough

Well, he'd serve sardines to anybody. He said he liked them. No, he didn't put on any airs. If he was going to have somebody to dinner, you just take what's here and that's it. He never did, "Oh, here comes somebody so high up and we have to put on airs." He never was like that. Sometimes, I'm told, he was too down to earth.

##

Shearer

I want to be sure I get that wonderful story about the couple he invited to dinner. How did this come about?

Roseborough

That's when he was the president of San Francisco State. He brought two couples of his colleagues and he called in the middle of the afternoon from the school and said, "What are you having for dinner? I am bringing some guests." He told me who they were and I said, "Fine," because he let me know early.

Shearer

And he didn't always do that?

Roseborough

Well, sometimes he would wait until the last minute to say he was bringing someone. So sure enough the couples came and Mr. Hayakawa fixed drinks. But one of the ladies--I don't know [her name]--nobody had told her that Mrs. Hayakawa wasn't home. She was looking around, waiting for Mrs. Hayakawa to appear. Finally, I came in and said, "Mr. Hayakawa, dinner is served." And still there was no Mrs. Hayakawa. I guess the lady decided she was just going to ask, so she said, "Well, where is Mrs. Hayakawa?" Mr. Hayakawa was sitting right there at the table and said, "Well, she left me." There was a minute of silence. I looked at him and said, "What?" Then he said, "No, she's on a field trip."

Shearer

What was your reaction?

Roseborough

It was a shock to me. I thought all the time that he had said, "You are invited for dinner, but my wife is away on a field trip." But anyway, he always could bring guests home when Mrs. Hayakawa was away, there never was any problem about that. All I wanted him to do was let me know in time.

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How Mr. Hayakawa Helped People ##

Shearer

What other things do you remember about him and the way he treated people? You said he was Mr. Open Hand, that he was very helpful to people?

Roseborough

Very. My niece, Julie Pope, came out here and she stayed three years right here in this house. Mr. Hayakawa was a U.S. Senator at this time. He said to her, "Now, if you go back to school, I will give you a job in my office." So she worked at his California senatorial office in San Francisco every day after school. She would leave College of Marin and go there and work. She lived here for three years. She wasn't here as a house cleaner; he put that girl through school. And Mrs. Hayakawa was one of the nicest persons. Julie would get up in the morning, and Mrs. Hayakawa would give her some breakfast and Julie would take off for school. Julie always had to go early, but Mrs. Hayakawa would always have something there for her to eat before she would take off. Mrs. Hayakawa was very, very wonderful. For three years.

Moving West with the Hayakawas ##

Shearer

You had lived all of your life in Chicago?

Roseborough

Just about it. I came to Chicago in 1932.

Shearer

From?

Roseborough

From Batesville, Mississippi.

Shearer

Batesville, Mississippi, I see. So you were what, a teenager then?

Roseborough

Yes.

Shearer

And then when they moved to San Francisco, as far as you knew this was going to be forever. That was a big move for you.

Roseborough

It was.

Shearer

What helped you make that decision?

---

Roseborough

Well, Mrs. Hayakawa had said that I was a big part of it. If I didn't come, they didn't know how they would get along. They were very considerate. If I moved out here with them, she said, "If something happens at your home, you can take a plane and be there in two hours." They would love to have me come and they said, "You probably will like it. You can try it." So I did, because I couldn't stand to part with my friend Mark. My boy.

Shearer

I understand you had very strong church ties in Chicago.

Roseborough

Very.

Shearer

So that was kind of wrenching that way, as well as having to leave your family.

Roseborough

Yes it was, in a way, and during that time my father was alive. My father was a minister and he said, "They have churches out there. You go with the family. When you get out there, join a church. Don't say, `I belong to a church in Chicago.' You can't live out there and belong to a church way back here." He said to join a church. He said, "Just work in the church, but don't try to run it!"

Shearer

Sounds as though he knew his daughter.

Roseborough

So I came out here and I was out here for four or five months before I joined a church, and I joined Third Baptist in San Francisco. During that time Reverend Haynes was pastor.

Shearer

I understand that Mr. Hayakawa sometimes helped you in designing programs for your church back in Chicago, that he helped to get Mahalia Jackson to come to the church. How did that work?

Roseborough

Now, back in Chicago, my brother was the one that helped with programs and things like that. Then, when we worked out here, I didn't have any help. I was lost, so I had to turn to Mr. Hayakawa.

Shearer

I see. And how did that work? How did he help when you moved out here?

Roseborough

If I was having a program, he helped make out my program. He would set it up properly. It had to be right because I never put out anything sloppy. But he used my words.

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African Art Collection

Shearer

One of the things you mentioned before we started taping was his collection of African art.

Roseborough

Yes, well he was just loaded with that.

Shearer

Yes, I see it everywhere in the house.

Roseborough

I have a set of cards, the ones we put on display at my church especially on Negro history and in the schools in San Francisco. Miss Addie Ross, and Mrs. Robert Pitts are teachers in San Francisco. Each year during Negro History Week, they would ask for Mr. Hayakawa's African art collection to display in the school for the kids. He made the cards to use with the exhibit to explain the background of each mask and sculpture to the children.

Shearer

I understand that some of these pieces from his collection are extremely valuable, but he lent them out to the schools for the children to look at and pick up?

Roseborough

Yes. That was through me. I was always responsible for them. They always thought whatever I asked of Mr. Hayakawa he would do, he would never turn me down, so they would ask me. They would say, "You ask Dr. Hayakawa if we could--". I would personally transport them. I didn't let anyone else handle them. I would stack them in the car, wrap them, and take them, and then bring them back.

Shearer

How did this feel to you? Was this art that you were familiar with or was this kind of a new experience for you?

Roseborough

Well, it was kind of familiar. You know, when you have been around it, it just automatically becomes familiar. He always explained things well and if he'd get some new piece, he'd say, "Come here, this is such-and-such a thing."

Shearer

Was African art something that had always interested you? Or was this something that you came to appreciate as you became acquainted with this collection?

Roseborough

I came to appreciate it after being here and reading the history of Africa--. I would get magazines from Mr. Hayakawa; then I came to appreciate a variety of art.

Shearer

Let's see now. Here we are. By 1955 you are out in San Francisco. You have moved with the family. You have left

---

almost everything you knew back in Chicago--this is more than a career move, this is a life move for you, isn't it? Wasn't it?

Roseborough

Yes, very much so.

Shearer

Did you feel firm in your decision?

Roseborough

Yes. And each year I just love it. I don't think--I wouldn't want to live back in Chicago now. But that's where all of my family is and I go back every year.

[tape interruption]

Caring for the Hayakawa Children

Shearer

Let's talk about the children. You described yourself as a housekeeper, but it sounds as though you were mainly devoted to and working with the children. Now, were there ever any issues of discipline? How you disciplined versus how Mr. and Mrs. Hayakawa disciplined?

Roseborough

No, that's one thing I can say. They never said anything about how I disciplined the kids. If I was saying something to the kids, they never said, "Well, that's all right. You can let them do it." No.

Shearer

They never interfered?

Roseborough

No, never. And the kids were very good. They really respected me and whatever I said was all right because I never gave them the feeling I was just the housekeeper and that's it. They had jobs to do. After dinner they would clear the table and if they didn't want to clear it, they would have to set the table. Mark was included, too, in that. So Mark picked clearing. He still does it today, stacking the dishwasher and helping. They never thought, "Oh, well, we don't have anything to do because we got a housekeeper." That was never there, and when Alan was growing up, the kids would bargain.

Shearer

They would bargain?

Roseborough

Yes.

Shearer

Among each other?

---

Roseborough

Yes. And bargain with me. But I let them get away with it sometimes.

Shearer

Give an example.

Roseborough

That's when Alan would start coaxing. He would say, "If you clear the table and do the dishes for me tonight, I will make up for it and do them two times." Things like that. He would eat pumpkin seeds and put the shells behind the bed. I said, "Listen, go up there and get those shells!" He said, "I'll tell you what. If you clean them up this time, then I won't put them there and next time I will do it." I let them get away with a lot of stuff then, about picking up their rooms and throwing their things around.

Shearer

You had a lot of negotiation, but it sounds as though you didn't have any defiance?

Roseborough

Right. Never. Never.

Shearer

I see. And how were they with their parents?

Roseborough

Good. Very, very good. The same thing. [laughter]

Shearer

You mean a lot of negotiation?

Roseborough

Right, and their parents would let them get away with a lot of things. Oh, I love the kids so. I never had any sassiness. We would just do things together. They were very, very good about that. Especially minding. They knew by the tone of my voice when I really meant it. I would say, "That's it!"

Shearer

They knew when you reached the limits? Or when they had reached the limits.

Roseborough

Right.

Shearer

Before we started recording, you said that never in the forty-four years you had worked for and with the Hayakawas did Dr. Hayakawa ever have a cross word for you, even when you "bested him in an argument." What kinds of things did you argue about?

Roseborough

Well, just minor things. I know one time we got into it over President Nixon. I--to tell the truth, I didn't care for the man. That's one thing that I always would say. A leopard never loses his spots.

---

Shearer

Now I'm watching you demonstrating what Dr. Hayakawa would do when he felt you had won the argument. Apparently he would kind of stick out his lower lip and go, "Pooh!"

Roseborough

Yes. And when he had won, I would say, "Now I know just where I stand. See that? Nobody--with all of my loyalty to you? I'm quitting!" [laughter] That was my reply. And then Alan would say, "You'd better stop that."

Shearer

He would be speaking to his father? Or to you?

Roseborough

To me. I would always tell him, "I'm quitting. I'm not going to put up with that." [laughter]

Shearer

But they knew better?

Roseborough

Oh, yes. And sometimes I would say, "Mrs. Hayakawa, did you hear that?" She'd say, "Now don't bring me in it! I didn't have a thing to say!" [laughter]

Shearer

It sounds like a good point to pause. Mrs. Hayakawa just brought us tea.

[tape interruption]

Roseborough

When he was writing Language and Thought in Action, and he was doing something away from the desk he would carry Wynne in a pouch hanging in front and when he would sit down to the typewriter he would have her on his back, while writing that book.

Wynne was a squaller.

Shearer

Oh, she cried?

Roseborough

And Mr. Hayakawa would be at his typewriter with her hanging on his back and I would come and look and see if she was sleeping. As soon as I would just ease her out of this thing on his back, "Waa!" [laughter]

Shearer

Just as soon as you would get her away from him she would start crying?

Roseborough

Yes.

Shearer

Well, I remember Marge saying he had all of his children, at various times, around him while he was trying to work.

---

Roseborough

Sure. I always had to be around. He'd call me and say, "Come corral this man, Mark." He never made it so the kids couldn't go to his study. No, never.

Shearer

He never barred access when he was working?

Roseborough

No, no. That's why Mark today, as soon as the phone rings, he will sit there and listen in. I guess you know that.

No, Mr. Hayakawa never said the kids couldn't come down while he was working. Sometimes he would get tired of it and then he'd say, "Okay, you be quiet" or something like that, but he never drew a hard line with the kids.

Shearer

So they must have been very much a part of his life because he worked at home so much.

Roseborough

Very much so. Yes.

Shearer

I remember Marge describing the kind of double desk they shared so that she was on the opposite side of the desk.

Roseborough

Yes.

Shearer

Sometimes that must have been very much of a family affair when they were trying to work.

Roseborough

Yes, it was. They would give them [the kids] a sheet of paper or something. I think the kids thought that they were doing a lot of writing. That's the way kids are.

Shearer

You were commenting on Wynne and how she started out life exercising her lungs. One thing that she remembers doing was going to the museum with her father. Was this also something that you carried on? Did you take them to the museums and--?

Roseborough

No. That was something that Mr. and Mrs. Hayakawa would do. I don't think I ever went to a museum. Maybe once or twice, but not all that much. I went to the zoo, but I never went by myself with the kids, it was always with Mrs. Hayakawa or Mr. Hayakawa.

Shearer

So it was sort of joint excursion?

Roseborough

Yes, that's right. Especially when we would go on trips like that, I never had to just take the kids and go. The parents would be with them, too.

Shearer

I understand that you went to Japan with the children.

---

Roseborough

The children were practically grown up then. First Wynne went, then Mrs. Hayakawa and Mark--I think Mr. Hayakawa was already over there with Alan, wasn't he?

Mrs. Hayakawa

I know we sort of did it in groups at separate times. I think Wynne went over there to study Japanese and was interested in painting and art, so she went by herself.

Roseborough

Then Mark and I--and I think Mrs. Hayakawa was with us--flew over and we stayed with Mr. Hayakawa's parents, Grandfather and Grandmother Hayakawa who lived in the old family home in Yamanashi. Then Mrs. Hayakawa and Mr. Hayakawa and his sister Grace took a trip while Mark and I stayed there. That was very nice. Then after they got back, I took a trip around Japan by myself with a tour group. It was nice, everybody kind of did his own thing.

Shearer

I see. You have been with the Hayakawas for, you said, forty-four years?

Roseborough

Yes.

Shearer

That's a very long time, longer than most marriages. [laughter] It occurs to me that, in a sense, this is almost a marriage.

Roseborough

A marriage to the Hayakawa family? It is, definitely.

Advice on Politics

Shearer

You mentioned something about politics earlier. How did you feel when Senator Hayakawa changed his registration from Democrat to Republican and ran for the Senate? Did you discuss that?

Roseborough

All I said was, "Oh pooh. You're not a politician; you're a educator!" That was it.

Shearer

Did you feel that education was a higher calling than politics?

Roseborough

Yes, I still do. Politics is all right, but it can't beat education.

Shearer

Do you care to comment on what you think he accomplished as an educator?

---

Roseborough

Well, I can't think of a thing that he didn't do. As an educator I think he was just great. I can't point out, well, he helped this one--he helped everybody. In the years when he was a college professor, every summer he taught classes of teachers. So it was a wide range. It just wasn't a little bit here. He was just all over.

Shearer

Do you--is there anything that you would like to say that I haven't given you a chance to say?

Roseborough

No. I don't think so.

Shearer

Anything about the children?

Roseborough

Well, I think we have covered the children.

Shearer

Child-raising?

Roseborough

I think we have covered that.

Shearer

Frederick March?

Roseborough

Well, that was exciting. He was a very nice man and very handsome. He and Mr. Hayakawa talked for a long time. There are so many lives of people--. Mr. Hayakawa really came in contact with an awful lot of people. He was just a lover of people. He didn't care who you were. He fooled around with Big Crawford and all of those guys. He was just a great person.

##

Shearer

It sounds like you miss him.

Roseborough

Sure I do.

Shearer

What do you miss particularly now that he is gone?

Roseborough

Well, a little bit of everything, to tell the truth. We are kind of settling down to it now, but I miss his presence around every time I come here in the living room. It looks like I can see him sitting there. Him coming into the kitchen every night before he really took ill, he would always wipe the pots and pans. Sometimes he would come in here in the living room and sit down and wait just until I was finished, and then he would jump up and run to the kitchen, too late to help. [laughter] He was just that type of a person. Humorous. He never made a fuss out of anything. Everything went along smooth.

---

Shearer

He appreciated your work?

Roseborough

Yes. He had to. That's when we would get into it. I'd tell him, "I'm going to quit!" [laughter]

Shearer

So you remember the arguments?

Roseborough

Yes. I miss them. They are just a wonderful family all around.

I think I've got everything covered now.

---

Tape Guide--S. I. Hayakawa

• Interviews with S. I. Hayakawa and Margedant Hayakawa
  • [Interview 1: March 15, 1989]
    • Tape 1, side A 1
    • Tape 1, side B 11
    • Tape 2, Side A 22
    • Tape 2, Side B not recorded
  • [Interview 2: March 30, 1989]
    • Tape 3, Side A 28
    • Tape 3, Side B 38
    • Tape 4, Side A 46
    • Tape 4, Side B 55
    • Tape 5, Side A 63
    • Tape 5, Side B not recorded
  • [Interview 3: April 19, 1989]
    • Tape 6, Side A 66
    • Tape 6, Side B 76
    • Tape 7, Side A 83
    • Tape 7, Side B not recorded
  • [Interview 4: April 25, 1989]
    • Tape 8, Side A 93
    • Tape 8, Side B 100
    • Tape 9, Side A 109
    • Tape 9, side B not recorded
  • [Interview 5: May 3, 1989]
    • Tape 10, Side A 117
    • Tape 10, Side B 125
    • Tape 11, Side A 133
    • Tape 11, Side B not recorded
  • [Interview 6: May 24, 1989]
    • Tape 12, Side A 139
    • Tape 12, Side B 146
    • Tape 13, side A 152
    • Tape 13, side B not recorded
  • [Interview 7: June 8, 1989]
    • Tape 14, Side A 160
    • Tape 14, Side B 171
    • Tape 15, Side A 175
    • Tape 15, Side B 184

  ---

  ― 380 ―
  • [Interview 8: June 14, 1989]
    • Tape 16, Side A 192
    • Tape 16, Side B 199
    • Tape 17, Side A 209
    • Tape 17, Side B 219
• Interview with S. I. Hayakawa and Stanley Diamond
  • [Interview 9: June 21, 1989]
    • Tape 18, Side A 223
    • Tape 18, Side B 235
    • Tape 19, Side A 247
    • Tape 19, Side B 257
    • Tape 20, Side A 268
    • Tape 20, Side B not recorded
• Interview with S. I. Hayakawa and Elvira Orly
  • [Interview 10: July 5, 1989]
    • Tape 21, Side A 277
    • Tape 21, Side B 285
    • Tape 22, Side A 294
    • Tape 22, Side B 302
    • Tape 23, Side A 311
    • Tape 23, Side B 320
    • Tape 24, Side A 330
    • Tape 24, Side B not recorded
• Interview with Jeanne Griffiths
  • [Date of Interview: January 27, 1993]
    • Tape 1, Side A 336
    • Tape 1, Side B 344
    • Tape 2, Side A 353
    • Tape 2, Side B not recorded
• Interview with Daisy Roseborough
  • [Date of Interview: November 17, 1992]
    • Tape 1, Side A 360
    • Tape 1, Side B 369
    • Tape 2, Side A 377
    • Tape 2, Side B not recorded

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Appendix A

Eulogies for Ex.-Sen. Hayakawa He is remembered as a man of many accomplishments

By Diane Curtis
Chronicle Staff Writer

S. I. Hayakawa, the former U.S. senator and president of San Francisco State University, was remembered at an upbeat memorial service yesterday as a soft-spoken and fun-loving intellectual with a love of jazz, art and the English language.

At a "celebration" at the Showcase Theater near the Marin County Civic Center, about 500 friends, relatives, former students and colleagues tapped their feet to the beat of the San Francisco All-Stars, a Dixieland jazz band, listened to a gospel song sung by a San Francisco school teacher and heard reminiscences of the man they knew fondly as "Don."

The picture that has been painted of Dr. Hayakawa, a Mill Valley resident who died last Thursday of a stroke at the age of 85, is "incomplete," said his 45-year-old son, Alan, a writer and journalist.

Besides being a politician and university president who stood up against '60s student protesters, the Canadian native was a scholar, semanticist, life-long teacher, jazz aficionado, fencer, tap dancer, sushi lover, joke teller, devoted husband and father and "boogie-woogie" pianist and harmonica player, his friends and family said.

Dr. Hayakawa's 40-year-old daughter, Wynne, an artist, said she almost does not recognize the man presented as feisty in press accounts. She described him as quiet, thoughtful, genial and a good listener.

Unlike the "transient notoriety" associated with his administrative career, Dr. Hayakawa's landmark book, "Language in Thought and Action," which is still required reading in many college semantics courses, and his excellence as a teacher have secured for him a permanent place in history, said Warren Robbins, founder of the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Dr. Hayakawa, an avid collector of African art, was a founding trustee of the museum.

State Senator Frank Hill, R-Whittier, who is carrying on Hayakawa's crusade to make English the official language of the country through the organization called U.S. English, was one of several people who said they were first attracted to Dr. Hayakawa because of his semantics book, which they said had a profound influence on their lives.

Gene Prat, a colleague at San Francisco State who became Dr. Hayakawa's chief of staff during his term in the Senate from 1976 to 1982, said his boss had a genius for turning the complex and convoluted into understandable English.

Governor Ronald Reagan gave him that guarantee, "and the rest is history," Prat said. He remembered the tam-o'-shanter-wearing academic later telling him, "You know, I pulled those wires out of that speaker, and it changed my whole life." He referred to a picture that was seen around the world of the college president yanking out the wires to a loudspeaker that was broadcasting a prohibited student rally.

Dr. Hayakawa's ashes will be scattered at Point Bonita off the Marin headlands, where he used to take his sons fishing. Besides Alan and Wynne, he is survived by his wife of 55 years, Margedant, and another son, Mark, 43.

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S. I. Hayakawa Dies at 85; Scholar and Former Senator

By KATHERINE BISHOP
Special to The New York Times

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 27 — S. I. Hayakawa, a noted scholar on language usage whose tough tactics against student protesters as a college president propelled him into a second career as a United States Senator from California, died yesterday in Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, Calif. He was 85 years old and lived in Mill Valley, Calif., just north of San Francisco.

He died of a stroke, a spokeswoman for the hospital said.

Mr. Hayakawa helped to popularize semantics in his academic career through his widely read book, "Language in Action," which was first published in 1941. But he became better known in the tumultuous 1960's for his actions in opposition to the student protest movement as president of San Francisco State College.

On Dec. 2, 1968, a photograph of him, wearing a tam-o'-shanter as he jumped onto a platform to rip the wires out of a sound amplifying system being used by striking students, was reproduced around the nation. He immediately became the symbol of adult authority taking control of rebellious students.

Mr. Hayakawa was able to translate support for his actions from conservatives and others into a political career, serving one term in the Senate, from 1977 to 1983.

Native of Canada

Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa was born the first of four children in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 18, 1906. He remained in Canada when his parents returned to their native Japan in 1929.

He graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1927 and received a master's

A symbol of adult authority against rebellious youth of the 1960's.

degree from McGill University before immigrating to the United States in 1929

He received his Ph.D. in 1935 from the University of Wisconson. In 1937, while teaching at the university, he married one of his students, Margedant Peters. At the time, marriages between whites and Asians were not recognized in some states, including California, and the couple lived for nearly two decades in Chicago.

In 1941, while an assistant professor of English at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Mr. Hayakawa published "Language in Action," which became a selection of the Book of the Month club and a popular high school semantics text. It was updated and published as "Language in Thought and Action" in 1949, and is still in print.

In an interview in 1976 he said the book had been written in response to the rise of Hitler and the success of his propaganda. He said he thought "people have got to understand something about how language works."

By the time Mr. Hayakawa was a college president, his writings on general semantics were widely seen in academic circles as a successful popularization of the work of Alfred Korzybski, a Polish scholar. Mr. Hayakawa had described himself as in "the deepest dept" to Dr. Korzybski.

The general theme of the Korzybski-Hayakawa theory as propounded by then was that words are not the same as reality, that at best they only lead to an understanding of real meaning and at worst actually camouflage it.

While experts in linguistics and semantics assess his contribution to the field as important for interpreting the theoretical research and scholarship of others in a readable form for the general public, Mr. Hayakawa was known to bristle at the assertion that he was not a scholar.

"It's fatal to your scholarly reputation," he said in a 1984 interview. "If you write things everyone can understand, you're a cheap popularizer."

After the outbreak of war with Japan in 1941 more than 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry were forcibly relocated from the West Coast and held in internment camps. Mr. Hayakawa, however, remained in Chicago and was not interned.

In 1976, while a candidate for the Senate, he angered many Japanese-Americans by asserting that the internment had been beneficial because it helped younger Japanese-Americans break out of the traditional paternalistic family structure.

Barred From Citizenship

Because of wartime restrictions, however, he was barred for years from becoming a United States citizen and became a naturalized citizen only in 1954.

From 1950 through 1955, Mr. Hayakawa lectured at the University of Chicago and pursued his love of American jazz, writing a newspaper column on the topic for a Chicago newspaper, The Defender, and coming to know Duke Ellington and Mahalia Jackson.

In 1955 he was hired as a lecturer at San Francisco State College, now San Francisco State University, and moved to a home in suburban Mill Valley. Mr. Hayakawa became a professor of English at San Francisco State in 1956 and taught part time while giving speeches to private groups and writing three more books.

He came to sudden national prominence in 1968 as spokesman for a faculty committee that opposed a student strike. The strike, led by the Black Students Union and joined by the American Federation of Teachers, was touched off by the suspension of a black instructor and demands for a black studies program and increased enrollment of minority students.

Mr. Hayakawa, after being appointed acting president of the college, banned student demonstrations and speeches, an act that led to the mass arrest of more than 400 people. Mr. Hayakawa was made president of the college the following year, a position he held until 1973.

Admiration From Foes

Nearly two decades after the turbulent events of 1968, Eric Solomon, a professor of English who was a leader of faculty members supporting the student strike, described Mr. Hayakawa as "a man for the appropriate season."

"We opposed him but admired him — against our will really — for the skill with which he established himself," Mr. Solomon said.

The convictions of those arrested were later overturned by the California Supreme Court as an abrogation of First Amendment rights.

The day after he retired as president of the college in August 1973, he switched his party affiliation from Democrat to Republican. Declaring that the Democratic Party was responsible for the youth rebellion of the 1960's, he ran for the Senate in 1976 at the age of 70. He won a close races against the Democratic incumbent, John Tunney.

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'Republican Unpredictable'

Eschewing labels, he referred to himself as a "Republican unpredictable" but quickly became identified as one of the most conservative members of the party. While in the Senate he opposed busing to achieve racial integration of schools, introduced a proposed constitutional amendment to make English the nation's official language, supported a reduction in the minimum wage for younger workers and unsuccessfully worked to withhold public financing from universities with affirmative action programs.

He was also satirized for frequently sleeping during Senate proceeding, earning him the nickname "Sleepin' Sam." He admitted that he sometimes drifted off but only when the speaker was taking 20 minutes to say something that could be said in two.

By the end of his term his wealthy conservative backers in Southern California deserted him. He began to campaign for a second term in 1982 but quickly dropped out.

Declaring that bilingual ballots were "profoundly racist" and that "the most rapid way of getting out of the ghetto is to speak good English," he served as honorary chairman of the California English Campaign, which promoted a successful ballot initiative in 1986 making English the official language of the state.

His other books included "Through the Communication Barrier" (1979).

Mr. Hayakawa is survived by his wife of 52 years, the former Margedant Peters; two sons, Alan, of Harrisburg, Pa., and Mark, of Mill Valley, and a daughter, Wynne Hayakawa of San Francisco.

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Obituaries: Outspoken U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa Dies at 85

By J.Y. Smith
Washington Post Staff Writer

S.I. Hayakawa, 85, a noted semanticist whose willingness to confront striking student radicals at San Francisco State University in the late 1960s led to a career in politics and a seat in the U.S. Senate, died of a stroke Feb. 27 at Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae, Calif. He had been hospitalized for bronchitis.

A witty, independent and iconoclastic figure whose interests ran the gamut from jazz and African and Asian art to fencing and cooking, Dr. Hayakawa was the author of a classic work on the way people react to words and symbols. As a public servant, he was a hero to some and a villain to others, and he readily acknowledged that he hurt himself by his tendency to speak without thinking.

But it was action, not words, that first gained him prominence outside of academia. He had been interim president of San Francisco State for less than a week when he climbed onto a sound truck on the campus on Dec. 2, 1968, and ripped the wires from the loudspeaker during a student protest. The event was captured on live television, and the slender, soft-spoken scholar with a fondness for multihued tam-o'-shanters became one of the most popular figures in California. He was dubbed "Samurai Sam."

During the next several months, he broke student and faculty strikes and restored normal classes. An African studies program was added to the curriculum, a key demand of the protesters. But demands that African studies be entirely independent were refused, and the department was put under the same administrative network as other academic programs.

In 1973, Dr. Hayakawa resigned as president of San Francisco State—he had been given the job on a permanent basis by Ronald Reagan, who was governor of California at the time—and three years later he ran for U.S. Senate. A former Democrat, he joined the Republican Party and described himself as a "Republican unpredictable."

He was an instant success on the hustings. Although he later supported the treaties giving Panama ultimate control of the Panama Canal, he delighted conservatives during the campaign when he said that the United States should keep it, because "we stole it fair and square." On another occasion, when asked for his views on a referendum on dog racing, he replied that he didn't "give a good goddamn about greyhounds one way or another." In the election, he handily beat Democratic incumbent John V. Tunney.

In the Senate, his outspokeness and seeming indifference to appearances became a liability. He had long had a habit of dozing off in meetings that bored him, but when he did it during orientation sessions for new senators and later at such occasions as White House legislative meetings he drew wide criticism. He was known as "Sleeping Sam."

There were other troubles. Dr. Hayakawa had not even been sworn in when he was ridiculed for objecting to his assignment to the Senate Budget Committee on the ground that "I don't understand money at all [and] have the greatest difficulty even balancing my own checkbook."

He alienated many constituents when he said that rising oil prices were not a concern, because "the poor don't need gas, because they're not working." He angered many others when he defended the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II as "perhaps the best thing that could have happened," because it helped integrate them with the rest of society later. He was a Canadian citizen teaching in Chicago during the war, and was not involved with the internment program.

In later years, Dr. Hayakawa sponsored a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States, claiming that a command of English was "the fastest way out of the ghetto." He opposed bilingual education in public schools and bilingual ballots as "foolish and unnecessary."

Finding himself with little support by the end of his first term, Dr. Hayakawa retired.

"He was invaluable during some very difficult times—a courageous man of integrity and principle," former President Reagan said in a statement.

Gov. Pete Wilson described Dr. Hayakawa as "a great California iconoclast," and said "certain images from S.I. Hayakawa's remarkable life will be burned into our memories forever."

Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa was born July 18, 1906, in Vancouver, British Columbia, of Japanese parents. His father, Ichiro Hayakawa had served in the U.S. [Navyasa] steward and then returned to Japan to marry Tora Isono. They settled in Canada, where the elder Hayakawa established an import-export business.

"Sam" Hayakawa, the eldest of four children, graduated from the University of Manitoba and received a master's degree in English from McGill University. He received a doctorate in semantics from the University of Wisconsin. He taught there until 1939, when he moved to Chicago and taught at what is now the Illinois Institute of Technology. From 1950 to 1955, he was on the faculty of the University of Chicago. He then joined the

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English faculty of San Francisco State, which is now part of the California state university system. He became a U.S. citizen in 1954.

Dr. Hayakawa made his scholarly reputation with "Language in Action," which appeared in 1941. It was reissued in 1947 as "Language and Thought in Action," a basic text in the field of semantics, which Dr. Hayakawa defined as the "comparative study of the kinds of responses people make to the symbols and signs around them."

The book was prompted by the rise of Hitler and the way he used words and symbols to consolidate his political power. It makes the argument that words can be used both to disguise and distort reality and to illuminate it, and that words therefore are different from reality.

Dr. Hayakawa's late brother-in-law, the late architect William Wesley Peters, was married to Joseph Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, who gave birth to the former Soviet leader's granddaughter in the Hayakawa residence in Mill Valley, Calif.

Dr. Hayakawa's survivors include his wife, the former Margedant Peters, whom he met while he was teaching at Wisconsin, of Mill Valley; two sons; and a daughter.

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Former professor evolved from semanticist to senator

By Bill Snyder
Tribune staff writer

Former U.S. Sen. S.I. Hayakawa, an owlish professor of semantics whose dramatic climb onto a sound truck at San Francisco State College made him a conservative folk hero, died of a stroke yesterday at the age of 85.

The jazz-loving, Canadian-born scholar, whose trademark was a jaunty tam-o-shanter, parlayed his hard-line stance against student radicals into national fame and a seat in the U.S. Senate.

Hayakawa's political life was preceded by a highly successful academic career as a pioneer in the field of semantics, publishing five widely read books.

But his propensity for napping during debates and making controversial, off-the-cuff remarks made him an object of derision, and his political career ended after a single term in the Senate.

Hayakawa's death at 1 a.m. in Marin General Hospital drew affectionate tributes from former President Ronald Reagan and Gov. Pete Wilson, but some Japanese Americans who resented his refusal to recognize the injustice of wartime internments were less sorry to see him go.

"He was invaluable during some very difficult times — a courageous man of integrity and principle," Reagan said. "Nancy and I are saddened by the death of our dear friend. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family during this difficult time."

Wilson described Hayakawa as "a great California iconoclast."

"I was saddened to learn of the passing of my predecessor in the U.S. Senate. Certain images from S.I. Hayakawa's remarkable life will be burned into our memories forever," Wilson said.

Foremost among those moments was Dec. 2, 1968, Hayakawa's first day on the job as president of San Francisco State College. The college was then in the midst of a massive and sometimes violent strike aimed at establishing the nation's first major black and ethnic studies departments.

A furious Hayakawa clambered onto the back of a sound truck parked in front of the campus in defiance of his orders, and ripped out the speaker wires, silencing the strikers.

"I was stunned, flabbergasted," recalled Ernie Brill, who was inside the truck that day. "He was so mad you could see the foam on his mouth."

Hayakawa's bold move was captured by newspaper and television cameras from around the world, transforming a bookish man who was hardly known outside the academic world into a telegenic symbol of law and order.

Even his opponents believed the attack on the sound truck was a stroke of genuis. "It's the kind of thing we wished we had done," said John Levin, a leader of the student strike and now a San Francisco-based screenwriter.

Thrived on conflict

The 5-foot 6-inch college president seemed to relish every confrontation with the radicals. After nine students were injured in a clash with police, Hayakawa said, "It's the most exciting thing since my 10th birthday when I rode a roller coaster for the first time."

The press dubbed him "Samurai Sam," a nickname he loved.

A lifelong Democrat, Hayakawa changed his registration to Republican and tried to run for the U.S. Senate in 1974. But a court barred him from entering the primary because he hadn't been a Republican for the required 12 months.

Two years later, Hayakawa easily defeated nine opponents in the primary and then bested incumbent Democrat John Tunney in the general election.

Tunney, son of former heavy-weight boxing champion Gene Tunney, said, "To use the metaphor of my father's profession, I found he was very difficult to lay a glove on."

The seat in the Senate was the culmination of a long journey for a man born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 18, 1906.

Although his parents were born in Japan, Sam Ichiye Hayakawa spoke no Japanese, and he angered fellow Japanese Americans by defending their internment during World War II.

He said the relocation of 120,000 of them from the West Coast to inland camps was "perhaps the best thing that could have happened" because it integrated them afterward into the mainstream of U.S. society.

Hayakawa escaped internment because he was a citizen of Canada during World War II and was then teaching in the Midwest.

Cressey Nakagawa, national president of the Japanese American Citizens League, said those remarks left a legacy of anger in the community. "You can't say he was well-liked." Had Hayakawa been a white man, Nakagawa said, "people would have called him racist."

Students got last laugh

Also unforgiving are the student radicals he tried to crush.

Brill, now a writer living in Vermont, feels that the strikers ultimately had the last laugh. "When we struck, multiculturalism wasn't even a word. Now, it's part of the national agenda," he said.

Eric Solomon, a longtime member of the English department at the college, jousted with Haykawa during the '60s. Yesterday he said of his former opponent: "He was the true embodiment of the phrase carpe diem — he seized the day at every moment."

Hayakawa graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1927, earned a master's degree at McGill University in Montreal in 1928 and his doctorate from the University of Wisconsin in 1935.

While teaching at Wisconsin, Hayakawa wrote a freshman English text to alert his students

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how language could be abused for propaganda purposes by such demagogues as Adolf Hitler.

Entitled "Language in Action" (now in revised editions as "Language in Thought and Action"), the book was published in 1941, became a Book-of-the-Month selection and a national best-seller and started Hayakawa on the road to affluence.

The book introduced the word "semantics" into general usage and established Hayakawa's reputation as a semanticist. Hayakawa later taught at the University of Chicago and then joined the faculty of San Francisco State College (now San Francisco State University) in 1955.

Became spokesman

He became an unofficial spokesman for conservative faculty members, decrying the growing influence of radical faculty members on the campus.

Then-Gov. Ronald Reagan made him acting president late in 1968, saying, "If he takes the job, we'll forgive him Pearl Harbor."

Hayakawa brought hundreds of police from all around the Bay Area to reopen the campus and was on his way to the Senate.

But by the time he was elected in 1976, Hayakawa was 70, and his age was showing.

Shortly before taking office it was reported that he slept through Senate orientation sessions, and "Samurai Sam" became "Sleepy Sam."

By the end of his term, polls showed him trailing then-Gov. Jerry Brown, the eventual Democratic nominee, by a 2-1 margin, and Hayakawa pulled out of the 1982 race.

After leaving the Senate, Hayakawa, who lived in Mill Valley, took up the cause of "English first," campaigning for a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States. He opposed bilingual education and bilingual ballots.

In recent years, Hayakawa stayed out of the public eye. He was admitted to Marin General Hospital in Greenbrae on Tuesday, suffering from bronchitis. However, the cause of death was a stroke, said hospital spokes-woman Sandra Boeschen.

Hayakawa is survived by his wife, Margedant, two sons and a daughter. Plans for a memorial service are pending.

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Ex-Senator Hayakawa Dies at 85 He gained fame in '60s as fiery president of S.F. State

By Louis Freedberg
Chronicle Staff Writer

Former Senator S.I. Hayakawa, the diminutive tam-o'-shanter-wearing semantics professor whose crackdown on student protesters at San Francisco State University in 1968 vaulted him to international prominence, died yesterday. He was 85.

The soft-spoken Hayakawa, who had lived with his wife, Margedant, in Mill Valley for 32 years, died at 1 a.m. yesterday morning at Marin General Hospital after being hospitalized for bronchitis.

The Canadian-born linguist was 70 when he was elected to the Senate in 1976 after a stormy tenure as president of San Francisco State during the tumultuous years of campus unrest over the Vietnam War and the emergence of the black power movement among college students.

Wearing his jaunty, multihued tam-o-shanter as his trademark, the feisty Hayakawa brought as much color and controversy to Capitol Hill as he had during his years as president of the strifetorn San Francisco campus a decade before.

"He was invaluable during some very difficult times," said former President Ronald Reagan, describing Hayakawa as "a courageous man of integrity and principle."

Reagan, also a fierce opponent of student radicals, was governor at the time Hayakawa confronted the San Francisco State protesters with tough words shouted through a bullhorn as he stood defiantly on the back of a truck.

Governor Wilson, who took over from the conservative Republican Hayakawa in the Senate in 1982, described Hayakawa as "a great California iconoclast."

"I was saddened to learn of the passing of my predecessor in the U.S. Senate," the governor said in a statement. "Certain images from S.I. Hayakawa's remarkable life will be burned into our memories forever."

Senator Alan Cranston, Hayakawa's colleague and frequent adversary, said yesterday, "`Sam and I agreed on practically nothing. Still, I respected him as a feisty but sincere battler for his beliefs."

Hayakawa was once one of the most popular figures to Californians fed up with student militants and Vietnam War demonstrators. But he saw his fortunes wane almost as soon as he was elected to the Senate in 1976 after a solid victory over Senator John V. Tunney, the Democratic incumbent who was seeking a second term.

He set the tone of his first term as a senator early by walking out on his own inaugural ceremonies. "My feet are cold," he said. The newly elected senator also bruised protocol again by passing up a black-tie dinner for freshmen senators because he was "bushed."

"When I first went to Washington," Senator Hayakawa told a friend on his first return trip, "I thought, `What is li'l ol' me doing with these 99 great people?' Now I ask myself, `What am I doing with these 99 jerks?' "

With a rapier tongue, the senator brushed off attacks on his advanced years, memory lapses and naps in the middle of legislative hearings. "It's how old you are between the ears that counts, particularly when you consider the number of people with frozen minds in their 30s," he once said.

His critics quickly dubbed him "Sleepy Sam" for his frequent catnaps during senatorial business.

Controversial Remarks

During his six years in Washington, Hayakawa also often made what he later conceded were ill-advised remarks. Although of Japanese ancestry, Hayakawa said it was "perfectly understandable" that Japanese Americans were sent to relocation camps for their own safety during World War II.

He endeared himself to conservatives by saying during his 1976 campaign that the United States should never surrender the Panama Canal because "we stole it fair and square." Yet two years later, he voted to return the canal to Panamanian control.

Congressional Quarterly ranked him 93rd among the Senate's 100 members in voting attendance, and Washingtonian Magazine rated him as the Senate's least effective member.

By the end of his term in 1982, polls showed him trailing then-Governor Jerry Brown, the eventual Democratic nominee for the Senate, by a 2-to-1 ratio. Hayakawa pulled out of the race when it became clear that he would never win. Wilson went on to beat Brown.

Hayakawa later complained that the media, especially the repeated jokes by Johnny Carson about his napping, had damaged his image.

"I blurt things out which newspapers take advantage of to caricature me," Hayakawa said. "But damn it, I'm the kind of guy that blurts things out as they come to me. And that's been very damaging. The people who get their basic political information from Johnny Carson remember nothing else about my career."

After leaving the Senate, Hayakawa was an adviser on Asian affairs to Secretary of State George Shultz and helped lead the successful 1986 California initiative campaign to declare English the state's official language.

Campus Years

Although a renowned linguist, Hayakawa achieved worldwide recognition in 1968 when he was appointed acting president of San Francisco State in the middle of a student strike led by the Black Students Union. The strike had resulted in several violent clashes between students and police and hundreds of arrests.

His first action as president was to shut down the campus for a Thanksgiving holiday cooling-off period while he decided on a course of action to restore order.

He reopened the campus Dec. 2, 1968, under a "state of emergency" with a number of strict rules including an order that teachers and students failing to report for classes would be suspended. He also promised a strong show of police on campus to enforce these and other orders.

But student strike leaders defied him and went ahead with a rally near the administration building, prompting the new president to stage a mini-protest of his own that stunned dissidents and eventually brought him worldwide recognition.

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Hayakawa climbed atop the protesters' sound truck during the rally and yanked out the wires to the loudspeakers, bringing the rally to an abrupt halt and ultimately thwarting the student strike. The incident was broadcast live on local television.

Hayakawa said he was determined "to break up this reign of terror" on the campus.

A few days after the sound truck incident, however, he announced the creation of the first black studies department at San Francisco State, as demanded by students, and made other concessions. The department still exists today.

'15 Minutes of Glory'

"He had 15 minutes of glory, he put S.F. State on the map, and he

His critics dubbed him `Sleepy Sam' for his frequent catnaps during senatorial business

was able to use that fame to get himself elected to the Senate," said San Francisco State English Professor Eric Solomon, who was one of Hayakawa's main critics on campus. "I can't think of a leadership contribution that he made as far as the institution is concerned."

But Hayakawa saw his actions as part of an almost religious mission to preserve the independence of the university. "I think that in another time, I would have been a priest," he once said in an interview. "Colleges today are very much what the medieval church was — all of that to which the hopes of human salvation are entrusted."

Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1906. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Manitoba in 1927 and took his master's degree in English a year later from McGill University in Montreal.

While studying for his doctorate at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, Hayakawa met Margedant Peters, a student at the university. They were married in 1937.

It was at Wisconsin that his colleagues, in mockery of his Canadian-English accent, kiddingly accused him of sounding like an Oxford don. They tagged him with the nickname "Don," which stuck.

Study of Semantics

Hayakawa once described semantics as "the study of what it is that goes haywire when people misunderstand each other — or themselves — and what to do about it."

His first book on the subject, "Language in Thought and Action," was basically a response to the dangers of propaganda, especially as it was used by Adolf Hitler in persuading millions to share his views.

Published in 1941, the book became a Book of the Month Club selection and quickly established him as one of the nation's specialists in semantics and linguistics.

He authored at least six other such books and contributed to the writing or editing of numerous dictionaries and other reference works on English usage.

In 1955, Hayakawa joined the faculty of what was then called San Francisco State College. A sports enthusiast as well as an educator, he was an accomplished fencer and for many years was in the starting lineup for the annual Reno's-VIP charity softball game in San Francisco.

In addition to his wife and mother, he is survived by two sons, Alan of Harrisburg, Pa., and Mark of Mill Valley, and a daughter, Wynne Hayakawa of Mill Valley.

Memorial services are pending.

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Appendix B: transformation: arts, communication, environment, a world review

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modern art and 20th century man

s. i. hayakawa

S. I. Hayakawa, a leading semanticist, is best known for his Language in Action and as editor of ETC.: A Review of General Semantics. In his memorable introduction to Gyorgy Kepes' Language of Vision, Dr. Hayakawa says "Whatever may be the language one happens to inherit, it is at once a tool and a trap . . ." Here he touches upon the various ways we structure our linguistic and visual abstractions.

In an essay entitled "Science and Linguistics," the late Benjamin Lee Whorf, an authority on the Mayan and Aztec civilizations and on American Indian languages, said a number of things about language which I believe will prove to be helpful to us in understanding some of the features of modern art. Before going into these remarks on language, however, let me explain that I am taking a somewhat circuitous path to a discussion of modern art on the assumption that there are a number of people—perhaps a minority, but perhaps not—who are still a little uneasy about artistic modernism: people who, while willing to be sympathetic, are still of an uneasy conviction that all the strange things that we have had to accept for the past three or four decades as art are a passing fad, from which we shall all eventually recover. Part of my purpose here will be to show why these feelings of bafflement are to be expected as a result of the kind of revolution that has gone on in art in the twentieth century. The other part of my purpose is to show how the twentieth century revolution in the visual arts is part of a larger revolution which has affected the thinking habits of twentieth century men in innumerable activities other than art.

Let us get back to Benjamin Lee Whorf. Most people assume that language is the "expression of thought." Such a statement contains the unspoken implication that we first have a "thought," and then "express" it by "putting it into words." Whorf, along with such scholars as Sapir and Bloomfield, established the fact that thought and language are not such independent processes as traditional accounts imply. Indeed, these modern students of language reversed, for all practical purposes, the traditional notion that a thought comes first, to be followed later by a linguistic formulation of the thought. As Whorf put it,

"We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds—and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way—an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of language. The agreement is, of course, an implicit and unstated one, but its terms are absolutely obligatory; we cannot talk at all except by subscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees."Science and Linguistics," by Benjamin Lee Whorf, in the Appendix to Language in Action, by S. I. Hayakawa (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1941)."

Or, if I may state it more briefly if a little less exactly, what Whorf means is that the kind of language we speak largely determines the kind of thoughts we have; we cannot speak without imposing upon the flux of experience an assumed structure implied by the formal or grammatical structure of the language we happen to speak.

Let me illustrate with one of Whorf's own examples. He contrasts the English language and that of the Shawnee Indians in their ways of isolating or abstracting different data from experience to describe a given situation. The English sentence, "I clean the gun with a ramrod" has, in addition to the words "I" and "gun," three items isolated from experience: "clean," "with," and "ramrod." In describing this situation in Shawnee, expressions for "I" and "gun" are present, but the rest of the statement is made by three isolates or abstractions not present in the English language, namely, "dry space," "interior of hole," and "motion of instrument," so that presumably the Shawnee sentence would become, if it had to be given anything like a literal translation, "I / dry space / interior of hole / motion of instrument / the gun."

Perhaps a couple of further examples will make clearer this principle of the structures created by language. In English, in order to make a sentence at all we have to use at least one each of two classes of words, namely, nouns and verbs—one to denote the actor and the other the action, as in "The boy runs," "The frog jumps." The limitation of this structure is revealed most clearly in those cases where the actor and action are inseparable, as in such sentences as "It rains," "It snows," where a purely syntactical actor, "it," is supplied for the purpose of meeting the structural

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requirements of an English sentence. As Whorf further says in the same essay:

"In the Hopi language, lightning, wave, flame, meteor, puff of smoke, pulsation, are verbs—events of necessarily brief duration cannot be anything but verbs. Cloud and storm are at about the lower limit of duration for nouns. Hopi, you see, actually has a classification of events (or linguistic isolates) by duration type, something strange to our modes of thought. On the other hand, in Nootka, a language of Vancouver Island, all words seem to us to be verbs . . . we have, as it were, a monistic view of nature that gives us only one class of words for all kinds of events. "A house occurs" or "it houses" is the way of saying "house," exactly like "a flame occurs" or "it burns." These terms seem to us like verbs because they are inflected for durational and temporal nuances, so that the suffixes of the word for house event make it mean long-lasting house, temporary house, future house, house that used to be, what started out to be a house, and so on."

WHAT IS IMPORTANT about facts such as these? From the point of view of anyone interested in the operation of the human mind, the important fact is that any statement or observation of reality is an abstraction—an abstraction dictated by the conventions of one's culture. Where the English-speaking person abstracts from the nameless, subverbal situation the idea of "cleaning with a ramrod," the speaker of Shawnee abstracts the "drying action with a moving instrument on the interior of a hole." The speaker of Shawnee, no less than the speaker of English, feels that his way of describing the situation is the simplest, most obvious, and most natural way of saying it. Until they get together to make systematic comparisons of the kinds of abstractions they make, it will occur to neither speaker that there can be any other way of describing the objective situation than that to which each is accustomed. I have dwelt on this example at some length in order to make clear a fundamental general point, namely, that all languages impose a conventional and more or less arbitrary structure upon the events described. That structure, as Whorf has said, is not given by nature; it does not "stare us in the face" although we may imagine that it does; it is created by the structure of the language we happen to speak.

With this background let us approach the problem of modern art. Just as most people in most cultures tend to regard their words as direct representations of fact, so have we all tended to believe that the traditional and familiar art styles of the West are direct representations (or imitations) of reality. Both in language and in art we have remained largely unconscious of the fact that what we represent through our verbal or visual symbols is not reality itself, but our abstractions from reality. But human beings in different cultures and in different epochs abstract and structuralize their experiences in widely different ways—and each way of abstracting makes sense to those who are accustomed to abstracting in that way, while it may make little or no sense to those with other ways of abstracting.

ANY PERIOD OF rapid growth and change, such as the world has been experiencing since the Industrial Revolution, obviously necessitates changes in the ways of abstracting. As A. N. Whitehead has said, A civilization which cannot burst through its current abstractions is doomed to sterility after a very limited period of progress. A basic general way in which the art revolution of the twentieth century (which had, of course, already begun in the nineteenth century) can be described is to say that artists, sensing perhaps more clearly than any others save scientists the bankruptcy of the traditional abstractions with which we had been trained to visualize the world and think about it, started systematically and even explosively to look for alternative ways of abstracting. This I believe to be the fundamental meaning of the modern movement in art: pointillism, futurism, cubism, surrealism, dadaism, expressionism, fauvism, the interest in Japanese prints, in Chinese calligraphy, in Italian primitives, in Oceanic, African, and American Indian art. And it appears to me more than coincidental that those modern artists who were philosophically, epistemologically, and semantically most aware of what they were doing (for example, some of the theorists of the Bauhaus tradition) have consistently used such terms as "visual syntax," "grammar of form," and "language of vision," in describing what they were up to. Modern artists have been, both consciously and unconsciously, seeking ways of abstracting different from those traditional in Western culture since the Renaissance. They have been doing so largely because they are convinced that traditional

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ways of seeing are not adequate to express the visual experience of twentieth century man and are searching for better ways of symbolizing our new kind of visual experience. They have also been doing so simply to explore the many and varied ways in which we can abstract and organize our abstractions, often, I suspect, in the way that mathematicians invent new mathematical systems, not for any immediate practical use, but for the purpose of exploring possibilities.

(I am not saying that modern art, or any part of it, is "mathematical"—whatever that may mean. I am saying that some modern artists, especially the abstract, and some modern mathematicians, are engaged in analogous pursuits in that they both appear interested in creating and exploring the possibilities of novel symbol-systems. The symbol-systems of mathematics and of art are entirely different from each other; hence I do not know what people mean when they say of some abstract artists that their work is "mathematical." Mathematics hasn't a thing to do with the paintings of, for example, Mondrian.)

Modern artists have also—and in this the analogy to linguistic analysis becomes most clear—dissected the materials of their language for us. By this I mean that when we look at a traditional painting, we are made to think as little as possible of the canvas, the brush strokes, the paint, and the wood; we are made to think about the object painted—the woman, the tree, the mountain, or whatever. Modern artists, on the contrary, have encouraged us to examine the materials out of which their languages are put together, as if they were saying to us, "Look, this is paint; this is wood; this is a piece of rope; this is corrugated paper—and this is what can be said with these materials!"

Breaking down the materials of their art languages, exploring the possibilities of the picture surface, trying out new kinds of perspective or avoiding it altogether, attempting to convey the new spatial experiences of the twentieth century, scientifically analyzing the psychological facts about the minute tensions produced in the eye by the experiences of color and color combination, the modern artist has been and still is engaged in the process of evolving the new visual languages more adequate to the feel of twentieth century experience than the art languages of the immediate European and American past.

Hence, "modern art" is not one tendency but a collection of many—some, like Mondrian, in the direction of the purely abstract; some, like Klee and Chagall in the direction of the fanciful manipulation of known symbols which are given new dimensions of meaning; some, like Leger, deeply interested in the impact of the machine on modern sensibility; some, like Duchamp and Calder, interested in introducing the time dimension into art to make the art-object an experience of motion; some, like Braque in his collages, insisting that paper be seen as paper, canvas as canvas, paint as paint; some, like Dali and other surrealists, interested in producing the maximum optical illusions of depth, roundness of form, moisture, and texture. In spite of these wide divergencies of style and aim, however, we lump these many tendencies together to call them all "modern," and it is worth noting that most people interested in what is called "modern" are interested simultaneously in contradictory and divergent manifestations of artistic modernity.

This fact, too, seems to me to call for explanation. Traditional Western philosophies have almost always believed, after one fashion or another, in Truth with a capital T. It has long been felt, for example, that it is the function of the artist to grasp the "essence" of things and to reveal the "Truth" and "universal order" underlying the accidents of appearance. Perhaps such neo-classicists as Alexander Pope expressed as clearly as anybody this belief in a discoverable "universal order":

	All Nature is but art, unknown to thee;
	All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
	All discord, harmony not understood;
	All partial evil, universal good.

The artist's intuition is supposed, under this theory, to rise above particularities and to arrive at "essences," whereby "Truth" and "Beauty" and "Order" stand revealed. To quote still another neo-classicist, Sir Joshua Reynolds:

. . . The whole beauty and grandeur of the Art [of painting] consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and details of every kind. All the objects which are exhibited to our view by Nature, upon close examination will be found to have blemishes and defects. . . But it is not every eye that perceives these blemishes. It must be an eye long used to the contemplation and comparison of forms; and which, by a long habit of observing what any set of objects of the same kind have in common, has acquired the power of discerning what each wants in particular. This long laborious comparison should be the first study of the Painter who aims at the greatest style. By this means, he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he corrects Nature by herself, her imperfect state by her more perfect. . . . As the idea of beauty is of necessity but one, so there can be but one great mode of painting. (Discourse III, 1770)

And again:

The natural appetite or taste of the human mind is for Truth; whether that truth results from the real agreement

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or equality of original ideas among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any object with the thing represented; or from correspondence of the several parts of any arrangement with each other. It is the very same taste that relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is pleased with the resemblance of a picture to an original, and touched with the harmony of music. All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature. (Discourse VII, 1776)

"All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature!" There is then but one Beauty for all time and one Truth. The "universal order" has been there since the Creation, and it is there whether the artist discovers it or not.

Such a theory of Truth, Beauty, and Order is, of course, radically at variance with both current artistic theory and current philosophy of science. There is, according to the modern scientific view, no more order to be found in the universe than we put there by ordering our observations and abstractions and generalizations into systems. For example, Newtonian physics is the ordering of an enormous number of observations about the universe, arranged into a coherent system. When that system was found to be deficient in certain fundamental respects, a still more general system, the physics of Einstein, was evolved, which made possible the inclusion of those observations which could not be fitted into the Newtonian system. Similarly, data that cannot be ordered in terms of algebra may be ordered in terms of the differential calculus. Data that cannot be ordered in a two-valued logic are given an order by a probability logic.

In philosophy of science, we are rapidly discovering in innumerable ways that the "order of the universe" is not something given us from outside, but something created by ourselves, by means of the ordering and arranging of our symbolic constructs at all levels of abstraction into more or less coherent systems.

In other words there is no one Truth with "unalterable and fixed foundations in nature," nor is there only one Beauty, dictating "but one great mode of painting." Every way of abstracting produces its own kind of truth, which, in the hands of one who orders his abstractions well, results in its own kind of beauty. And the order based on Miro's way of abstracting is different from that based on Mondrian's way. Each has its validity, and each has its limitations. And it is characteristic of the modern frame of mind and the modern sensibility that all of us who delight in modern art find pleasure and excitement and order in radically different styles at once. It seems to me, therefore, that although a great deal of our pleasure in modern art lies in our admiration of individual ways of abstracting and ordering abstractions shown by the various artists, still another element in our pleasure is the knowledge we derive that all these ways of abstracting have their legitimacy. We are no longer bound by the cultural provincialism that enabled people in the past to select one favored style, Greco-Roman or Sung Dynasty Chinese, or any other, and say "This alone is art!!" Modern art, with its own experiments as well as with its explorations of exotic arts, have widely enriched for all of us the meaning of art; and the trained modern sensibility, largely because of its education in the formal aspects of visual and plastic experience given by modern artists, is able to understand in their own terms multitudes of artistic idioms, such as the African and Oceanic and American Indian, which were incomprehensible to our immediate critical predecessors.

Modern artists are then contributing profoundly to the break-up of cultural provincialism—and in this fact lies, I believe, its deepest relatedness to other forms of modern awareness. The cultural anthropologist and the sociologist, studying different and exotic cultures, try to understand each culture in its own terms. The effect of this attempt, as we all know, is the gradual diminution of that provincialism that stands as a wall between one class and another, between one people and another.

In times past, it used to be possible for us in Western culture to say of the Zuni Indian, the Dobuan, the Arapesh, the Chinese, or the Russians, "They do as they do, they think as they think, because they don't know any better." The rise of cultural anthropology is a response to our perception of the fact that such provincialism of attitude is inadequate for the purposes of social thinking in the modern world. In comparative linguistics, in semantics, in many of the new psychologies, and in the philosophy of science, we see also the attack upon cultural rigidity, and the attempt to understand the variety of ways in which the world can be seen and made intelligible. We are, in all these fields and in many others, in an age of exploration—an exploration of the possibilities of human thought and vision and cultural and psychological reorganization. It is an age of inward exploration more exciting, possibly, than the exploration of new continents. We cannot any more take our integrations tailor-made as they are handed down by any one culture. We are compelled by historic necessity to examine all the possibilities—and, in one way or another, to try to roll our own. This is the larger, over-all task, in which modern artists are doing their part when they produce the kind of work they do.

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Dr. S. I. Hayakawa Is Main Speaker for Banquet; Talks About "Meanings of African Art"

Perhaps one of the most important reasons, psychologically speaking, for studying an exotic art is that unfamiliar symbols, unfamiliar conventions of representation, unfamiliar types of composition challenge profoundly our assumptions about the world — challenge even more profoundly our conceptions of proportion and esthetic order. Of course, one of the great effects of post-impressionist art in Europe and America was to break up the artistic conventions and esthetic assumptions common in the Western world since the Renaissance. Post-impressionism opened us up to all the later possibilities of artistic innovation and discovery that are represented in such directions as cubism, fauvism, futurism, expressionism, dadism, surrealism, and abstract expressionism. Post-impressionism enabled the Western viewer to overcome the provincialism of feeling and vision that characterized much of the artistic taste of the 19th century. Among the many ingredients that went into post-impressionism was the influence of African art. It happened in Paris, naturally, not only because of the sensitivity of French artists to new experiences and new ways of seeing, but also because of close cultural relations between France and its colonies in Africa. * * *

Quotation from Maurice Vlaminck:

"One afternoon in the year 1905 I found myself in Argenteuil. I was painting the Seine, with its boats and small hills beyond. The sun was blazing. I gathered my paints and brushes together, picked up my canvas, and went into a nearby inn. Sailors and coal heavers were standing at the bar. While I was refreshing myself with white wine and Sedlitz water, I noticed on a little table, among the bottles of Pernod, absinthe and curacao, three pieces of Negro sculpture, two Dahomey figures daubed with red, yellow and white ochre, and another from the Ivory Coast, which was black.

"Was it perhaps because I had been working for two or three hours in the full sunlight? Or was it the particular state of mind I happened to be in that day? Or perhaps it was due to my pre-occupation with certain problems of my own? Whatever it was, these three statuettes had the most profound effect on me. In a moment of intuition I became aware of their latent power; and all Negro art was in that moment revealed to me . . . They affected me at the deepest possible level.

"Shortly afterward, one of my father's friends to whom I had shown the statues, offered to give me some pieces of his own, which his wife had threatened to throw on the rubbish heap. I called on him and came away with a large white mask and two superb statues from the Ivory Coast. I hung the white mask above my bed. I was elated, but at the same time somehow disturbed: I felt I was in the presence of all the primitivism and all the grandeur latent in Negro art. When [Andre] Derain arrived, and saw the white mask, he was speechless. He seemed to be stunned . . . When Picasso and Matisse saw it, they in their turn were bowled over by it. From that day the hunt for Negro art was on!" [Boris de Rachewiltz, Introduction to African Art (London, 1966) pp. 139-140.]

Quotation from Henri Matisse:

"At that time [1907], I used to pass Father Sauvage's shop in the Rue de Rennes, where some Negro statuettes were on show in the window. I was moved by their purity of line, and by their strangeness. There was a beauty about them, not unlike that of Egyptian art. I bought one of them and showed it to Gertrude Stein, whom I happened to be going to see that day. While we were looking at it, Picasso came in. He at once became enthusiastic, and from then on everyone began to look for Negro statues, which in those days were not difficult to find."

("That mask," says de Rachewiltz, "marked the beginning of Matisse's African collection and of his fauve period.") (de Rachewiltz, Intro. to African Art, p. 141.)

The symbol, as Susanne Langer says, is the basic instrument of thought. And those who create new symbols, whether as scientist, poets, novelists, dramatists, artists, or sculptors, are those who, by giving us new instruments to think with, give us new areas to explore in our thinking. And poets and artists are indeed the unacknowledged legislators of the world if, by giving us new symbols, they give all of us new areas of insight and sensitivity.

The creation of symbols — the basic tools with which to think and feel — is then the fundamental task of the artist and, as Robert Oppenheimer has suggested, of the genuinely creative theoretical scientist. These are the people who give us our tools to think with.

The symbols of the scientist have their special uses, for theoretical clarification, for system building, for practical application, but what of the symbols of daily living — the verbal and visual symbols in terms of which we negotiate our day-to-day problems? We sort out, organize, and think about the data of our daily experience with two sets of tools: verbal symbols and visual symbols. With our verbal symbols we describe the world, ask questions of ourselves and others, make decisions with the answers. With our visual symbols, by which I mean the images, the image clusters, the visual stereotypes inside our heads, we also sort out and organize and think about the data of our daily experience, and create with them our pictures of the world.

But are our symbolic tools adequate? If the symbols, the abstractions, the words, the phrases, the visual images, the interpretative stereotypes that we have inherited from our cultural environment are adequate, we are indeed adjusted to reality. But what if they are not? Like other instruments, languages select, and in selecting what they select, they omit what they do not select. The thermometer, which speaks one kind of language, knows nothing of weight.

"The possible existence of a philosophical system that explains all phenomena as imminent energy casts light on some of the formal qualities peculiar to African sculpture. The belief

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that things do not merely symbolize or possess force, but are force, may help to explain the particular affinity, noted by many non-African artists and art historians, that the tribal carver has for his materials. This belief also explains the dynamism which many ethnologists and art scholars would identify as the outstanding characteristics of African tribal sculpture. This dynamism or sense of `captive energy' is immediately recognizable even to one who understands nothing about African art. It may even account for the very negative reaction it evokes in some people." (Warren Robbins, African Art in American Collections, New York 1966, p. 12.)

"Observers are frequently disturbed by what they regard as `distortions' in African sculpture. In human figure carvings, the head, breasts, navel, genitals, and feet are often exaggerated, and in animal carvings the head and horns will be emphasized at the expense of trunk and limbs. What some people might construe as a defect of the primitive eye is actually a conscious and eminently logical system of emphasis. The human head is singled out since in African belief it is the abode of character and destiny; the breasts and genitals, because as embodiments of the progenitive power they are all-important in life; the navel, because it is a symbol of continuity in life; animal horns and tusks, because they represent virility and fertility . . . African sculpture is essentially an abstract art . . . Like the modern Western artists, the African sculptor `abstracts' those features which are most salient to him. The judgment as to which features are important may vary between the two cultures, but the process of reduction of forms to what is essential and meaningful is the same for both." (Robbins, African Art, p. 14.)

T. E. Hulme, in his essay on modern art, describes the function of art for primitive people: "They live in a world whose lack of order and seeming arbitrariness must inspire them with a certain fear . . . In art this state of mind results in a desire to create a certain abstract geometrical shape, which, being durable and permanent, shall be a refuge from the flux and impermanence of outside nature. The need which art satisfies here is not delight in the forms of nature . . . but the exact contrary. In the reproduction of natural objects there is an attempt to purify them of their characteristically living qualities in order to make them necessary and immovable."

In other words, in so-called "primitive" art, West African or American Indian or the art of the South Seas, the attempt is to come to terms with a hostile nature by imposing upon natural forms an intellectual, geometrical order. In this way, these arts serve as equipment for living in an environment filled with unknown terrors. Art, said Hulme, "cannot be understood by itself, but must be taken as one element in a general process of adjustment between man and the outside world. The character of that relation determines the character of the art."

How shall the artist of today come to terms with the present environment? How shall he find the images which, like the sculpture of the West Africans, will bring us to terms with the terror and mystery of our environment?

"African carvings play specific roles in every area of tribal life. In the form of masks, headdresses, human and animal figures — the latter often ingenious configurations reflecting the composite nature of the spirits they represent — they lend force in the most literal sense to rituals concerned with every aspect of human experience.

"Masks, for instance, may be used variously to maintain social order, arbitrate disputes, collect debts, preside over initiation ceremonies, assure success in hunting or war, placate the harmful forces that would bring disease or calamity to the tribe, or sometimes simply for the purposes of entertainment or satire. Many masks perform functions not unlike those carried out by certain Western symbols. Like a policeman's or soldier's uniform, for example, a mask can be an instrument of law enforcement. Certain masks used in African tribunals could be compared to the wig traditionally worn in British courts. But whereas the British wig is invested with no force of its own, the tribal mask not only represents, but embodies, authority. Furthermore, it is not merely a temporal authority that it embodies, but the full power of ancestral spirits." (Robbins, African Art, p. 14-16.)

Today the world perceived by the senses is only a part of the total reality we deal with. The new worlds and new forces disclosed by science in the past few decades — by electronics, by astro-physics, by microbiology, by photo-elasticity studies, by radioactive tracer studies, and by nuclear physics — these realities are not revealed directly to the senses.

The task of creating these images and symbols, then, is the urgent task of the artist and designer today. The great difficulty of this task lies in the fact that symbols adapted from the visible world of hills and houses and trees and flowers and faces can rarely, if ever, serve as the iconography of our new scientific knowledge. Our basic knowings are no longer of things and their properties, but of structures — usually inferential structures. In other words, events at nuclear, atomic, and molecular levels, cosmic-ray phenomena, and events at the level of the extremely large, as in astrophysics, are not visual experiences, but logic and mathematical derivations from instrument readings and hypotheses. These inferred structures and events are never directly experienced; they can only be visualized (if at all) through the construction of models (such as molecular models) or through special kinds of photography (for example, stroboscopic analysis).

How can one symbolize with paint or plaster or stone such a grim reality as radioactive fall-out?

Western philosophers and scientists convey meaning through verbal abstraction. Meaning is communicated on several levels in both spoken and written discourse, not only by variety and richness of vocabulary and syntactical structure, but also by nuances of phrasing and rhythm and connotation and sound.

In the absence of written languages, philosophical ideas are transmitted in African tribal cultures by visual symbols. When a composite animal head, like the "Waniouge" fire-spitter of the Senufo, combines the tusks of the bear, the horns of the buffalo, the teeth of the crocodile, the eyes of the owl and the cars of the baboon in a powerful and complex image, the sculptor is making theological allusions, combining abstract concepts, and communicating ideas just as surely as a T. S. Eliot or an Albert Camus.

The African carver's ability to convey philosophical meaning through abstract visual symbols is an unmistakable kind of intellectual power that we in the West are only beginning to recognize.

Convention Timetable

November 26-December 1, 1967 in Lima, Peru — Twentieth Annual Meeting of the World Federation of Mental Health.

August 5-9, 1968 in London, England — Seventh International Congress of Rorschach and Other Projective Techniques. For information write to Chairman, Administrative Committee, 32 Willes Road, London, N.W. 5, England.

August 12-17, 1968 in London, England — Seventh International Congress on Mental Health. For information write to Organizing Secretary, 39 Queen Anne Street, London, W. 1, England.

August 18-22, 1968 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands — Sixteenth International Congress of Applied Psychology.

August 28-September 3, 1968 in San Francisco, California — Annual Meeting of the International Council of Psychologists.

August 30-September 3, 1968 in San Francisco, California — Seventy-Sixth Convention of the American Psychological Association.

September 16-21, 1968 in Vienna, Austria — Fourth International Congress of Group Psychotherapy. For information write Secretariat, Fourth International Congress of Group Psychotherapy, c/o Wiener Medizinische Akademie Stadiongasse 6-8, A 1010 Vienna, Austria.

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On Communication with ChildrenReprinted by permission from Science and Human Affairs, ed. by Richard Farson (Palo Alto: Science and Behavior Books, Inc., 1965). In the preparation of this paper the writer is deeply indebted to his wife, Margedant Peters Hayakawa, with whom all the ideas here presented have been discussed and from whose unpublished paper on the same subject many paragraphs have been appropriated, sometimes with quotation marks but more often without.

S. I. Hayakawa

General semantics is a general theory of how you can act a little more sanely because you talk to yourself a little more sanely. There are two facets to the question of general semantics and children. First of all, how do you teach general semantics to children? How do you get them to be semantically well-oriented and extensional and fact-minded? The second, however, is a much more important question: how do we teach ourselves to be semantically well-oriented and fact-minded and extensional toward our children? That is, what chance have our children to become extensional if we do not ourselves manifest extensional attitudes in our behavior toward them? So I shall start by addressing myself to this latter question.

Whenever I say "extensional" you can use the term "fact-minded" instead; "extensional" is a term I am more used to because it is part of the vocabulary of general semantics. The extensional meaning of a word is that which it refers to in the nonverbal world. A "glass of water" is not a verbal definition; this thing in my hand is it. So an extensional attitude tells you to look not for verbal definitions but for the events, the situations in the outside world--not words--which words are about.

We live in an age which is relatively extensional about children, at least in that section of our culture which is capable of being reached by new ideas. As we look back in our own culture, I think it is safe to say that previous ideas about the nature of children were highly doctrinaire and sometimes quite dogmatic. Let's take a few examples of beliefs about children which have had their currency at one time or another.

First, there is the theological approach which tells us that babies come to us full of original sin; that is, they are inhabited by nature with devilish wills that have to be broken, so that the task of bringing up a child is somehow or other to exorcise that original sin. We never quite succeed! Then there is a less theological approac another kind of theory about children--that they are formless clay. They just aren't anything at all until we shape them in some way or other by the molding we give them--by wise counsel, and proper restraints and advice, and so on. And if you don't keep at it all the time, they go out of shape.

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Under the impact of psychological behaviorism there arose still another notion that the basic idea in bringing up children is conditioning--that the child should be favorably conditioned to good habits and conditioned against bad habits, and that the child will learn the right habits more readily if you start your conditioning very early. This body of doctrine led to the fashion which reged some thirty or more years ago of extremely early toilet training and rigid schedules. Babies would cry their hearts out, but if, according to the schedule, it wasn't time to feed them, you had to let them cry. The likes and dislikes which the child was to carry through life were fed into him as if he were being programmed like an electronic computer.

All of these theories, and more, have had their currency at various times, and they are still held by various segments of the public. Each of them represents the effort of people to develop their children according to the models of human nature which they have inside their heads. But each of them can also be described as an activist theory, in the sense that the active doing of something to the child is felt to be necessary if the child is to grow up into an acceptable citizen and taxpayer. We are an activist culture; America is a fantastically energetic nation. Perhaps it is because of our energetic character that it did not occur to anyone until quite recently to ask what would happen with children if you tried to leave them alone. From the point of view of activist theories, as you can imagine, leaving children alone represented quite a fearful idea. What anarchy you would have! What damage to personality! Surely they would all develop into little hoodlums and savages.

Nevertheless, within our time pioneers in the study of child development have tried in various ways to leave children alone, or at least to let them determine certain things for themselves. Many readers, for example, may remember the famous experiments which involved ignoring all ideas as to when babies should be fed and only feeding them when they expressed hunger; it was called "demand feeding. There were also experiments in which investigators put dishes in front of little children, fruit and sweets and ground meat and all sorts of things, and they let the children choose for themselves without trying to decide what was good for them. The investigators found that instead of anarchy and indigestion and autocratic infants, there resulted healthy, happy babies with a surprisingly orderly pattern of needs and a kind of internal schedule of their own, a pattern that could be studied and described. They tried letting eight-month-old children choose their own diets, and they found that although on some days they would eat too much of some things, over a two-week period they would balance their own diets without any worrying on the part of adults.

Then the investigators went on to the neurology and physiology and behavior of infants and children in an extremely detailed way, asking questions like: When do they wake? When do they sleep? Eat? Cry? At what age do they sit up? At what age do they walk? When do they start piling up blocks, working puzzles? When do they start playing cooperatively with other children? And so on. Gradually a vast amount of information was built up by such people as Arnold Gesell and his associates. Let me add, lest I be misunderstood, that when I say

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an attempt was made to see how children would develop if they were left alone, I do not mean to give the impression that anyone thinks a child can actually be left alone without parents, siblings, or society around him. This awareness of context is given in the title of Arnold Gesell and Frances Ilg's widely read book, Infant and Child in the Culture of Today. What I mean is that for a variety of reasons, among which can be scientific curiosity, there has been a trend away from what I call "activist" theories of child-rearing. It is only by knowing what children, in one area or another of their lives, will do when left alone that we discover what remains necessary to be done in addition.Arnold Gesell and Frances Ilg, Infant and Child in the Culture of Today (New York: Harper, 1943); Arnold Gesell et al., The First Five Years (New York: Harper, 1940); Arnold Gesell and Frances Ilg, The Child from Five to Ten (New York: Harper, 1946); Arnold Gesell, Frances Ilg, and L. B. Ames, Youth: The Years from Ten to Sixteen (New York: Harper, 1956).

Another manifestation of this trend away from activist theories of child-rearing is to be found in the client-centered theories of Carl Rogers and his associates, and in other related theories that emerge from psychiatry, psychoanalysis, and clinical psychology. For generations it has been believed that the principal job of being a parent is to issue sufficient and proper directives. You say, "Do this" and "Don't do that" and "Stop that" and "Keep on doing this" and so on, and you continue this all day long. If you direct them often enough, the theory is, they will straighten out and fly right.

My late mother-in-law, whom I loved very much, had this hortatory habit. She found it difficult to speak to my children without in some way or other making a generalization about desired behavior; that is, a directive that not only had to be good for the present but had to be a lesson. She was wonderful to them but I could not help noticing this habit of talking to children in an unfailingly instructive way. There was a fear that if you let them do something unmannerly or incorrect once, it would become a lifetime habit. Sometimes in a spirit of play I violated good table manners. I amused my children very much once by taking a great mound of jello and slurping it down in one gulp. The children were enormously impressed with father for being able to do this. But the example I was setting them worried my mother-in-law very much. She kept saying, "Suppose the children do this at the St. Francis Hotel!" I said, "Well, they're not likely to do that in the St. Francis Hotel." This idea that you always have to be setting an example or laying down a rule is a very burdensome way of looking at communication with children.

Against all this, what Carl Rogers is exploring is how far you can go in helping children toward self-understanding and maturation if you refrain from giving directives. Refrain. And by simply trying harder to understand what the world looks like to the child. In other words, the powers of self-direction and self-discipline inherent in

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the child are being systematically explored by people like Carl Rogers, Dorothy Baruch, and others--after being long ignored because of our activist preoccupations. With the discovery of these powers of self-direction in children, there is also a careful study of how these powers of self-direction can best be nurtured.Carl R. Rogers, Counseling and Psychotherapy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942); Carl R. Rogers, Client-Centered Therapy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1951); Dorothy Baruch, New Ways in Discipline (New York: Whittelsey House, 1949).

Let me give another example from the late Wendell Johnson, the semanticist at the University of Iowa, whose specialty was the study of stuttering because he started out as a stutterer himself. In studying child development he discovered that all children, all children, when they begin to talk, repeat words and syllables the way a stutterer does. Sometimes they repeat these words and sounds and syllables eight or ten times before they get the word out. You've had this experience with your own children. A child comes into the house, a little child about two-and-a-half years old, in great excitement, and says, "Mommy, I saw, I saw, I saw. . . ." He is far too excited to be able to say it calmly.

Now the mother's evaluation of this kind of utterance is of crucial importance. If she regards this repetitiousness as normal, she'll just relax and wait for the child to finish the sentence. And that's all there is to it. But if she expects the speech fluency of an older child in a child who is only two-and-a-half, then she may say, whether to herself or to the child, "What's wrong with the child? He's stutter ing." Once she begins to say this, and to react to what she has said, she can make the child so self-conscious about his speech that he becomes a stutterer.

This is Wendell Johnson's semantogenic theory of stuttering--that stutterers are not born, they're made. They are made by over-conscientious and over-anxious mothers. This theory may very well be true, because very often stutterers are first children, not the second, third or fourth--certainly never the fifth, because the mothers don't care by that time.Wendell Johnson, People in Quandaries (New York: Harper, 1946), especially Chapter XVII, "The Indians Have No Word for It: The Problem of Stuttering."

Wendell Johnson's account of what he regards as the chief cause of stuttering--of course I have oversimplified the theory in stating it--suggests that many of our problems with our children are created not so much by the children as by our unrealistic expectations about them. Supposing little Howard wets his pants. Is it a problem or isn't it? Well, this depends on two things. It depends first on how old Howard is, and second, it depends on what you expect of a child of that age, whatever that age may be. Is the fact that Susan eats messily at table a problem? Again, it is or is not, depending on what your

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expectations are of a child of Susan's age. If you expect more of Howard or Susan than you have any right to expect at their developmental stage, you've really got a problem--you created it yourself!

The advantage of living in our times is that we have, on the whole, better information than any previous generation on how children develop. Today the parent of a firstborn child can start out with the wisdom and relaxation and predictability which he formerly had to have five children to acquire. That's the advantage of "time-binding," as general semanticists call the process of information-gathering and dissemination.

Of course, what we believe about children today may not be the last word; there will be changes and corrections. But the extensionali ty of the approach, I think, is likely to last because we live in an age in which there is some respect for the scientific gathering of data, especially about such matters as child development. And likely to last, too, I believe, is the realization that the child has certain needs and drives and a certain general pattern of development which are born in him. It is the job of the parent to understand these patterns and go along with them, and to create an atmosphere in which the human personality can unfold.

Now along with all this information comes the realization that human development is an extremely complex process--and I should emphasize both the complexity and the fact that it is a process. All sorts of forces are interrelated and never stand still. My wife wrote a few years ago, "If our son, Alan, gets into a fight at school, it affects his behavior at lunch-time. If the oldest girl in a family is feeling displaced by a younger sister, she may cling to her mother, sock her sister, pour the bathwater on the floor--all three or a dozen more behaviors may result. We can no longer view each item of behavior in separate, compartmentalized pigeonholes. And when parents do view them in this way they are likely to deal with them separately and therefore inadequately. For example, supposing you react to misbehavior at lunch by tightening up on the rules about table manners. You may be doing exactly the wrong thing, because the misbehavior at lunch may result from an emotional upset on the playground which has nothing to do with the lunch table, except that the human being is an inter-connected creature so that all these events do have their connections within themselves."

What is the bearing of general semantics on these matters? First of all it seems to me that training in general semantics gives a kind of readiness to receive and absorb and utilize the kind of information about children which scientific research has given us, because so much of what has been outlined here fits in perfectly with the principles of general semantics. There are, I am told, pediatricians who won't let mothers read baby books. The reason they forbid mothers to read is not that the books are bad, although some of them may be; it is that many mothers, unused to scientific ways of thinking, and perhaps over-anxious too, often misread the books they read. Unaccustomed to distinguishing between levels of abstraction, they often confuse the general with the particular. To give an example, a woman wrote once

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in a letter to me: "If our baby wanted only two ounces of milk when the book said she should have eight, we used to waste an enormous amount of time and energy and emotion trying to coax her into taking what she didn't want." And the point about her comment is that until the difference between the statistical baby who wants eight ounces per feeding on the average and her particular baby who sometimes wanted two ounces and sometimes wanted twelve was pointed out to her, she was confusing the two and trying to give the baby eight ounces at each and every feeding.

Now, if a statement about the number of ounces of milk an average baby needs can be so badly misread, think of the vast number of more complicated statements contained in such books as those by Frederic Bartlett, Dorothy Baruch, Arnold Gesell, Anderson and Mary Aldrich, Margaret Ribble, and so on; think of all the statements there that you can misread if you're determined to misread them. But surely the solution to this problem of misreading need not be so drastic as to forbid mothers' reading!

Not only mothers but writers in newspaper columns and women's magazines seem also to be affected by this problem of misreading. When an authoritative writer opposes rigidity in methods of guiding children and urges permissiveness or non-directive methods, some popular interpreters, like some mothers, immediately make of permissiveness a dogmatic slogan. Then, a year or two later in the same popular journals you have a "reaction against permissiveness," with cries to the effect that parents have rights too, and calls to "put father back at the head of the family." Thus there develops a shunting of opinion back and forth between the extremes (both absurd) of permissiveness and authoritarianism. It seems to me that magazines and newspapers argue back and forth on these things in cycles of about three years. This kind of hassle is surely one that general semantics can teach us to avoid. The two-valued orientation makes polarized, opposing dogmas out of otherwise useful generalizations.

Permissiveness is a tremendous idea. Permissiveness does not mean, and no one has ever meant it to mean, allowing children to break up the furniture or to pour hot soup on their little sisters. Permissiveness means permitting children to do what they want, up to the point of not creating disturbances for others, not hurting others. But a more important component of permissiveness is that children shoul feel free to express their deepest feelings. Whether they do anything about them or not, they should always feel free to express them. Often the expression is verbal or symbolic. In Virginia Axline you read about children, for example, who are very jealous of a little brother, and they pound to pieces a doll representing little brother. This is a way of fully expressing feelings in order to understand them and master them. Therefore permissiveness means, among other things, symbolic or expressive permissiveness. Even in a therapy situation, however, actions are held within certain well-defined limits.Virginia Axline, Play Therapy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947).

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But most people don't distinguish between words and actions very clearly. So even after you've described what you mean by permissiveness, people still sometimes ask, "But you can't let the kids break up the furniture!"

Now, as to the matter of the dynamic complexity of a child's development, the general semantics orientation should prepare one for the fact that the whole is more than, and different from, the sum of the parts, and that you don't put in good advice here and get out good behavior there like a chewing-gum machine. Indeed one of the first things you learn in general semantics is that communication is a complex matter indeed, about which too many people are hopelessly thoughtless and naive. The common assumption in communication is that the way to do it is tell 'em, then tell 'em again, and if they don't mind, hit 'em. For an enormous number of people this exhausts the repertory of their communicative techniques. In a Chicago newspaper there was a story of a child who fell out of a third story window and was killed. The mother, who was out of the house at the moment, was incredulous as well as grief-stricken. "I always spanked him for going near the open window," she said. As a matter of fact she had just spanked him for the same offense and had felt so badly about it that she went out to the corner to get him some ice cream when the tragedy happened--and she just couldn't understand it.

A similar situation is described in fiction. In Willard Motley's Knock on Any Door, the hero, Nick, ends up in the death cell convicted of the murder of a policeman after a long career of delinquency, reform school, and crime. In the background of this career are intense hatred and resentment of his father. The father cannot understand why his son ended up in this terrible way. "I can't understand it," says the father. "I told him and I told him and I told him, and I always whipped him when he did wrong." And the boy in the death cell doesn't understand it either. He gives the following advice for bringing up his newborn nephew. Aunt Rosa calls on him in his death cell and he says to Aunt Rosa, "Don't let what happened to me happen to him, Aunt Rosa. Beat the hell out of him, Aunt Rosa. See that he does right." So this whole absurd behavior is passed on from generation to generation.

Those who still believe, after all the writing that semanticists have done, that semantics is a science of words, may be surprised to learn that semantics has had upon me, at least, and on many others, the effect of reducing rather than increasing one's preoccupation with words. Let me explain what I mean by this in connection with communication with our own children. First of all there's that vast area of nonverbal communication with children that we accomplish through holding, touching, rocking, caressing our children, putting food in their mouths, and all of the little things that we do. These are all communication, and we do this for a long time before the children even start to talk.

Then, after they start to talk there is always the constant problem of interpretation. There is a sense in which small children are recent immigrants in our midst. They have trouble both in understanding and in using the language, and they often make errors. So many

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people (you can notice this in the supermarkets, especially with two- and three-year-old children) talk to their children and get angry at them because the children don't seem to mind, and anyone standing around can tell that the children just haven't understood what mother said. But mother feels, "Well, I said it, didn't I? What's wrong with the child that he doesn't understand? It's English, isn't it?" But, as I say, the child is a recent immigrant in our midst and there are things that the child doesn't understand.

There are curious instances. Once, when our little girl was three years old, she found the bath too hot and she said, "Make it warmer." It took me a moment to figure out that she meant, "Bring the water more nearly to the condition we call warm." It makes perfectly good sense if you look at it that way. Confronted with unusual formulations such as these which children constantly make, it seems to me that many of us react with incredible lack of imagination. Sometimes children are laughed at for making silly statements when it only requires looking at them--at their way of abstracting and their way of formulating their abstractions--to see that they are not silly at all.

Children are newcomers to the language: one thing that happens that people don't really understand well enough--and even linguists are only beginning to understand it--is that when you learn a language you don't just learn words; you learn the rules of the language at the same time as you're learning the words. How do you prove this? Very simply. Little children use a past tense like, "I runned all the way to the park and I swimmed in the pool." "Runned" and "swimmed" are words they did not hear. They made them up by analogy from other past tenses they had heard. This means that they not only learned the language, they learned the rule for making the past tense--except that the English language doesn't follow its own rules. And when the child proves himself to be more logical than the English language we take it out on the child. Which is nonsense. Therefore I think that children's language should be listened to with great attentiveness.

Again, when our daughter was a three-year-old, I was pounding away at my typewriter in my study and she was drawing pictures on the floor, and she suddenly said, "I want to go see the popentole."

I kept typing.

Then I stopped and said, "What?!"

She said, "I want to see the popentole."

"Did you say popentole?"

I just stopped. It was a puzzle to figure out, and I did. In a few seconds I said, "You mean like last Saturday, you want to go to Lincoln Park and see the totem-pole?"

She said, "Yes."

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And what was so warm about this, so wonderful about it, was that having got her point across she played for another twenty minutes singing to herself, very very happy that she had communicated. And I felt very proud of myself at the time for having understood. I didn't say to her, "OK, I'll take you next Sunday to see the popentole." The mere fact that she'd made her point and got it registered was a source of intense satisfaction to her.

I keep feeling that one of the things we tend to overlook in our culture is the tremendous value of the acknowledgment of message. Not, "I agree with you" or "I disagree with you" or "That's a wonderful idea" or "That's a silly idea," but just the acknowledgment, "I know exactly what you've said. It goes on the record. You said that." She said, "I want to go see the totem-pole." I said, "OK, you want to go see the totem-pole." The acknowledgment of message says, in effect, "I know you're around. I know what you're thinking. I acknowledge your presence."

There is also a sense in which a child understands far more than we suspect. Because a child doesn't understand words too well (and also because his nervous system is not yet deadened by years spent as a lawyer, an accountant, advertising executive, or professor of philoso phy), a child attends not only to what we say but to everything about us as we say it--tone of voice, gesture, facial expression, bodily tensions, and so on. I think that he attends to a conversation between grown-ups with the same amazing absorption. Indeed, a child listening is, I hope, like a good psychiatrist listening--or like a good semanticist listening--because he watches not only the words but also the nonverbal events to which words bear, in all too many cases, so uncertain a relationship. Therefore a child is in some matters quite difficult to fool, especially on the subject of your true attitude toward him. For this reason many parents, without knowing it, are to a greater or less degree in the situation of the worried mother who said to the psychiatrist to whom she brought her child, "I tell her a dozen times a day that I love her, but the brat still hates me."

The uncritical confidence that many people place in words is a matter of constant amazement to me. When we were still living in Chicago there was a concrete courtyard behind our apartment house. I heard a great deal of noise and shouting out there one day, and I looked out and saw a father teaching his boy to ride a bicycle. The father was shouting instructions: "Keep your head up. Now push down with your left foot. Now look out, you're running into the wall. Steer away from it. Steer away from it! Now push down with your right foot. Don't fall down!" and so on and so on. The poor boy was trying to keep his balance, manage the bicycle, obey his father's instructions all at the same time and he looked about as totally confused as it is possible for a little boy to get. Well, one thing we learn from general semantics, if we haven't learned it some other way already, is that there are limits to what can be accomplished in words. Learning to ride a bicycle is beyond those limits. And having sensed those limits, we become content to let many things take care of themselves without words. All this makes for a quieter household.

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The anthropologist, Ray Birdwhistell, has undertaken a study that he called "kinesics," which is the systematic examination of gesture and body motion in communication, and this is a rich area of concern about which many students of human behavior have been much excited. But there is a danger in going too far in this direction. You can't go overboard to the extent of saying that words are of no importance. There are thousands of things that children must know and enjoy which it is not possible for them to get without words.

The sense of what one misses through the lack of words has been brought home to us by the fact that our second boy, Mark, now seventeen, is a serious case of mental retardation. At the age of six he was hardly able to talk at all; now he talks quite a bit, but his speech is very difficult to understand; members of the family can under stand it about half the time. I remember the following incident when he was six years old. He understood many things; words with direct physical referents he can always understand--watch, glass of water, orange juice, phonograph, television, and so on. But there are certain things which exist only in words, like the concept of the future. He came across an ice cream bar at ten minutes to twelve when lunch is just about to be served. You try to take it away from him and say, "Look, Mark, you can have it right after lunch. Don't eat it now. You can have it right after lunch." Well, when he was six all he could understand was that it was being taken away from him now, and the idea that there was a futurity in which he'd have it back was something he just couldn't get at the time. Of course, the sense of futurity developed later but it took him so much longer to develop it than the other children.

Other children, of course, at a much earlier age understand the concept of futurity. For human beings, the future, which exists only in language, is a great, wonderful dimension in which to live. That is, human beings can readily endure and even enjoy postponement; the anticipation of future pleasures is itself a pleasure.

But futurity is something that has no physical referent like "a glass of water." It exists only in language. Hence Mark's frequent frustrations and rage when he was younger were a constant reminder to us that all the warmth and richness of nonverbal communication, all that you can communicate by holding him and feeding him and patting his head and playing on the floor with him, are not enough for the purposes of human interaction. When you get to games, organized games of any kind, they all have linguistically formulated rules. Take an organized game like baseball. Can you have baseball without language? No, you can't. What's the difference between a ball and a strike? There are linguistically formulated rules by which we tell the difference. All systematic games, even much simpler games which children play, have to have a language to formulate the rules. So an enormous amount of human life is possible only with language, and without it you are very much impoverished.

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In psychological literature you read a lot about how it is necessary to have respect for each individual child, and educational literature is full of all sorts of theories about how the uniqueness of each child must be understood and attended to. Now, respect for the child is paid lip-service in all democratic societies; that is, the respect for every human individual, including children. Like all generalizations--"respect for the individual," "respect for every child"--they are easy to say and they sound good at teachers' institutes. But they represent difficulties in practice because everybody believes that he already respects the child--in the same way that everybody believes in "justice" and also believes that his own actions are just. If we fail, then, to show sufficient respect for the uniqueness of the child, that failure is almost always unconscious. We do not, and indeed we cannot, know in what ways we are failing, because at the level of awareness we all think that we are doing fine.

Here is where general semantics can help us a great deal. General semantics trains us to expect and look for the unique differences in every individual, object, event, or person, so that we shall be ready to accept and understand, not only the uniqueness of each child--not to expect this child to be like any other--but, on the other hand, not to have a faint dislike for other people's children because they're not like one's own. There's no need to dwell on this, but notice what we do. You may say to your child, "Why can't you stick to your piano practice? Shirley practices two hours a day." But your child is not Shirley. "It's high time Wilbur began to realize. . ." but your child is a particular individual, not a statistical generalization. So when you constantly place your child in judgment against a statistical generalization or against other children, in a very important sense you are not respecting the uniqueness of your child.

A more subtle reason for the failure to respect a child is what I shall call a "map-territory" confusion. We have a certain conception of our children inside our heads. That's the map, the conceptual map of our child. Out there is the child himself. Now if we are given to "map-territory" confusion we may well confuse our conception of the child with the child himself and therefore have unrealistic expectations or unfounded anxieties about him. Respect for the child, then, means not only keeping in touch with the child, but open-mindedly in touch with him, so that we can keep our conceptions changing from day to day and month to month as the child changes.

But what happens as a result of our language habits is that we sabotage ourselves in this task. Somewhere along the line we verbalize our perceptions in conceptions. We say, "John is the musical one. "Eddy is so high-strung." "Naomi is so hopelessly shy," and "Isn't it a shame about Janet's hair?" Then we are likely to react no longer to John and Lddy and Naomi and Janet as they actually are, but to what we have said about them. Furthermore some parents say such things, includ ing extremely uncomplimentary things, in the presence of the children themselves, thereby helping to fix, for better or worse--and often for worse--the child's own self-conception. The individual trained in

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general semantics is careful about this kind of labeling behavior.Johnson, op. cit.; Irving J. Lee, Language Habits in Human Affairs (New York: Harper, 1941); S. I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action, 2d ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1964). I think it is legitimate for parents, between themselves when the children are not around, to ask such questions and to discuss them. "Has Frank got any artistic talent?" "Well, I'm afraid not." But you don't say this in front of Frank!

It also goes without saying that, just as you are careful about labeling the children, you should be careful about labeling other people too. You hear parents saying to their children, "Don't play with the Jones children. They're not our kind of people." Or remarks like, "Good God, Jews are moving into that apartment upstairs." People say the most dreadful things. Then they wonder why their children grow up with prejudices.

Let me emphasize that you don't have to be a student of general semantics to have arrived at such conclusions as the foregoing. Because general semantics is essentially a description of sane evaluation, if you are reasonably sane most of the time, general semantics is a description of how you already function, whether you have heard of general semantics or not. But some of us find it helps to have the general semantics scheme of things in mind: such as the concept of evaluation; the idea that events as we know them take place in the nervous systems of human beings; that no event is an objective fact independent of an evaluator--that is, no trip to the zoo, no Christmas present, no goodnight hug, no cross word, no family meal, no book read aloud, exists for the participants without an evaluation being involved as its most important ingredient. In every situation between parent and child, and between children, evaluations are involved and these interact upon each other.

My wife tells the following experience about the evaluative process in illustrating the point that unawareness of one's own evaluative process is the real sign of immaturity and inadequacy in a parent. She writes, "One day I wasn't functioning very well as a parent. In fact I was being lousy. I was getting dinner in a hurry. Alan was being a nuisance, deliberately interfering with what I had to do and pestering his younger brother, who began to cry, and I was getting shorter and shorter tempered. And I thought, `This is too much. He's being purposely ornery to annoy me because he can't stand my not paying any attention to him. He really must learn that people have other things to do, getting tenser and tenser and my tension communicating itself to him, because he got more and more uncontrolled and resentful all the time. And because I was feeling tired or something I was choosing to run head-on into what I evaluated as deliberately annoying behavior on the part of Alan. As I said, this was one of the days when I wasn't at my best. Well, things kept on in this state of unpleasantness until Alan came over and put his head in my lap, and I felt his head, and I jumped up and got the thermometer and discovered he had a temperature of 103. So immediately I began to evaluate his

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whole behavior differently. What was intolerable annoyance became simply a symptom of his illness. Formerly I had evaluated it by saying, `I haven't time for him,' and suddenly I discovered I had lots of time for him.

"Now, when any of the children's behavior seems to me unbearably annoying I say to myself: `Suppose you discover he has a temperature of 103? In that case there would be no question of bearable or unbearable. Suppose you stop evaluating in those terms right now and find some better approach.' And so when I get into a situation like this, I am being a naive parent, and the naive parent operates with little or no consciousness of the part his own evaluations play in creating the situation in front of him."

Think of the evaluations with which we browbeat children: "Eat your carrots, they're good for you." "Eat your custard, it's delicious." "That sand is wet, ugh." "That old wheel is dirty, put it down." "Don't touch those ashtrays, they're dirty." "You should love your little brother!" "Come here and say thank you. Your Aunt Bessie won't bring you any more presents unless you say thank you." "He's getting too fresh; got to show him where to head in." "That's just attention-getting behavior; ignore it." "Stop that crying, there's nothing to cry about." Now, these are mild examples; we needn't descend to the shocking levels of rudeness, strident commands, and physical violence which you can see any day in a supermarket or on the playground. These represent the politer sins of forcing one's own evaluations on the child, or trying to--and you usually don't get away with it.

"This is good." "This is valuable." "This custard is delicious." "This is the way a big brother should feel." "That is attention-getting behavior." "There is no reason to cry." Is. Is. Is. The objective fact supported by the size and power of the parent. And no awareness that each of these phrases contains an evaluative factor. No saying, "This is how I evaluate it; does the child evaluate it that way?" Is a present desirable because it cost a lot of money? Because it appeals to me? What about the child's interest? Is the dirtiness the important thing about the old wheel? Is the order of the room the most important thing about the ashtray? What about the child's right to explore the world? Isn't his freedom to explore, and feel, and find out about the world, important to him? Isn't it a very important question whether the custard is delicious to him? And politeness. How can you teach politeness, in this case saying "thank you," when at that very moment you are being impolite to the child, showing him up in front of Aunt Bessie? And what's wrong with attention-getting behavior? Isn't attention a legitimate demand? Do I want my attention-getting behavior ignored? God forbid! And what good is it to say, "There's nothing to cry about"? There obviously is or he wouldn't be crying.

A generalized consciousness of the fact that one always sees things in terms of his own evaluations, and that the child is doing the same, makes for a more flexible and more adaptable and much more effective approach to the problems that parents are constantly having to solve. This consciousness of evaluation need not be a matter of

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insecurity, or indefinteness of opinion. When you are driving a car, just at the edge of your consciousness is the white line that tells you that you are on the right side of the road. You don't have to worry about that white line every second; it's there, it's at the edge of your consciousness. In the same way certain rules of general semantics--like the knowledge of evaluative processes--act like that white line. You don't have to worry about it all the time. It's just there and when you wander over it you begin to pull yourself together and say, "What am I doing here?"

If we behave toward our children in general with this flexible attitude, with the attitude, "I'm not necessarily right, let's find out;" if we are aware of differences between one person and the next, one action and another action, one person at one time and the same person at another time; if we avoid crude, undifferentiated labeling and abstraction; if in answering our children's questions we are not perfunctory but try to answer them with all the extensionality at our command and within the child's grasp, then we shall substantially have answered the question, "How do you teach a child to be extensional? How do you teach a child to be semantic?" Well, you will have taught them by having set them an example.

We have a set of ceramic ashtrays at home, and when Alan was about six years old an aunt was there for dinner and she said, "Pass me an ashtray." He said, "Which one?" There was a set of six ashtrays. My aunt said, "They're all the same, pass any one." Alan thereupon began to show my aunt in what ways each of these ashtrays was different from the other. My aunt no doubt thought he was being childish and silly, but I must say that we were at the moment very proud of him.

Next, I want to talk about what is ordinarily called the "moral training" of the child. I shall start by quoting the famous Canadian psychiatrist, Brock Chisholm, the first chairman of the World Health Organization of the United Nations. In 1946, soon after the end of the Second World War, he gave some speeches on the subject of the moral guidance of children which shocked people in Canada and the United States. At the time he was Deputy Minister of Health for the Dominion of Canada. When he gave a speech in Washington that was reported excitedly in the newspapers, he got a telegram from the Minister of Health demanding his resignation for saying such outrageous things. Dr. Chisholm, who at the time was trying to get publicity for his ideas, said "Fire me."

Well he didn't get fired, but the idea was this. He said that besides all the economic, political, and other causes of war, one of the contributory causes of war was the sense of guilt left in most people as the result of their moral instruction--or what most people call their moral instruction. He said all this in such a way as to cause quite a bit of upset.

Suppose a father says to a child, "Don't do that! It gets on my nerves!" This is an invitation to an interesting experiment: will father get angry or won't he? So, the child does it. It gets on Papa'

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nerves. Then Papa blows up and punishes him. What father said is verified by the results of the experiment. "Stop doing that, you're going to make your little sister cry." The boy continues to do it. Little sister starts to cry. "If you continue playing with those dishes that way you're going to break one." So he continues playing with the dishes and drops one on the floor. It happened just as predicted.

Each of these instructions is, in a scientific sense, operational. If A, then B. If you do so-and-so, such-and-such will happen. If the child wants to do something enough to take a chance on making father angry, he can decide for himself whether to take the chance. He can decide for himself whether to take the chance of making his sister cry or breaking one of the dishes, and, having weighed the chances, he will say "I'll do it," or "I'll not do it." But notice that whenever you give an operational injunction of this kind, you ultimately leave it up to the child to decide what he wants to do.

But there is another, altogether different way of controlling the child, which is to say, "Don't do that. It's wicked, naughty, bad, immoral." What do these words mean? Or, "Jesus will not love you if you do that!" How do you prove, after you've done it, that Jesus no longer loves you? There is no experimental method by which the prediction can be confirmed or disproved. "If you do that, you will blacken your soul--you will never get to Heaven." The child is made to fear, but there is no way for him ever to find out if the consequences to his actions will follow as predicted. Let me quote my mother-in-law once more. Even at the age of eighty-three, she told this story with emotion. When she was three or four or five years old, her grandparents controlled her by saying, "Your dear, dead mother in Heaven is watching from the stars and knows everything you do." Even at her advanced age, it still upset her to recall the terror of that heavenly surveillance.

What a dirty trick! In principle, much that has traditionally been called morality has been controlling people by frightening them with non-operational, non-verifiable statements. You were not encouraged to figure out what is proper behavior by the use of intelligence and social experience; you had to submit to control by threats of injury to your immortal soul and the fear of the flames of hell. What is produced by these methods is the opposite of morality--which I would define as the power of self-control of the adequately socialized individual evaluating in the light of his own needs as well as the needs of others the desirability of bringing on known, predictable sequences of events through his own powers of choice.

Suppose you are brought up under this regime of "God will not love you if you do so-and-so." Most of us brought up by these methods, says Brock Chisholm, are burdened for the rest of our lives by a sense guilt--an unspecific sense of guilt that cannot, by the very nature of the means by which it was produced, ever be completely dispelled. Let me quote at some length from Dr. Chisholm's detailed account of how this is done:

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Commonly in childhood the process goes something like this:

1. Child does something he wants to.
2. Mother punishes or disapproves with accompanying "Bad, bad boy."
3. Child is afraid of physical punishment, or threatened loss of security in disapproval, and does not again commit same act when mother is there, but
4. Child does same thing when mother is not there.
5. Mother discovers child has done it again, sometimes "a little bird told me" or "God told me. . . ."
6. Mother punishes child.
7. Child stops doing it when mother is not there for the same reasons as (3) above, but he is now more confused with magic and more convinced of his essential badness.
8. Child imagines doing things he would like to do and often unguardedly indicates this to watchful parents.
9. Mother punishes or strongly disapproves of child's thinking things and frequently copes with the situation with "Remember God always knows what you are thinking. . . ."
10. Child has to control his thinking and make it "good", leaving no outlet whatever for all his normal and desirable urges and wishes, which by now are almost all labeled "bad". All the "original sin," the normally developing human urges, must be hidden even from himself by pretense, guilt, shame, and fear. . . .
11. During this same time other magics which prevent the development of clear thinking have been set up. Among these are fairies, Santa Claus, personification of animals and things, night skies in which stars are deceased relatives, babies brought by storks, or in the doctor's bag, or found under rose bushes, and many other distortions of reality. Unless he goes through a long and difficult process of re-education it is probable that no child who has ever believed in any of these things can ever, throughout his life, think quite clearly and quite sanely about a wide variety of important things in his adult environment. This statement is not theory; it is quite provable.G. Brock Chisholm, "Can Man Survive?" ETC., 4, 1947, pp. 106-111.

The result of this kind of miseducation is the crippling of one of man's most important gifts--his power of imagination. Says Dr. Chisholm:

Imagination provides a way of exploring without any real danger, of trespassing without being caught, of adventuring to gain experience without committing oneself in reality. Imagination is a scout that man may send in all directions--past, present, and future--to investigate all circumstances, activities,

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possibilities, and consequences.

. . .If the scout (imagination) must be deaf to some things, blind to others, and may not feel still others, its value as a reliable source of information is greatly reduced.Ibid.

The crippling of intelligence by these bandages of belief, in the name of virtue and security for the soul, is as recognizable as that of the feet of the Chinese girl who was sacrificed to the local concept of beauty. The result is, in both cases, not beauty of character or of feet, but distortion and crippling and loss of natural function. Intelligence, ability to observe and to reason clearly and to reach and implement decisions appropriate to the real situation in which he finds himself, are man's only specific methods of survival. His unique equipment is entirely in the anterior lobes of his brain. His destiny must lie in the direction indicated by his equipment. Whatever hampers or distorts man's clear true thinking works against man's manifest destiny and tends to destroy him.G. Brock Chisholm, "The Reestablishment of a Peacetime Society," Psychiatry, 9, 1946, pp. 3-20.

Before coming to a close, I would like to say a little about the role of the father. One of the occupational hazards of being a father (or a professor) is the temptation to play God. Being looked up to, we find it necessary to know all the answers or to pretend that we do. Therefore, whether as professors or parents, we all have some tendency to sound off before the young on topics about which we don't know very much. In one way or another we try to maintain the fiction that father knows best. There has been a considerable revolt against this authoritarian figure of the father, and this revolt is manifest in almost every comic strip depicting demostic life. The father is ineffectual, helpless, silly, the legitimate butt of all jokes, the victim of all family strategy worked out by mother and the children. You will recall Clarence Day's play, "Life with Father," which sums up brilliantly and cruelly both father as authority figure and father as damn fool. They are, of course, the same man.

One of the basic ideas of general semantics is that no one can know it all, no one needs to know it all, and that human beings can enjoy life which is a never-ending quest, increasing knowledge and wisdom and predictability through experience, by keeping their minds open and flexible and hospitable to new information. General semantics also teaches that emotional security based on anything other than that openess of mind and ability to learn and adapt to new situations is illusory. What, then, is the role of the father or mother in this new orientation? If, instead of being an authority figure, the answerer of all questions, he regards himself simply as a senior partner in a joint research enterprise, he will have found a solution. He answers his children's questions with: "This much I know, this I've heard, this I don't know. Let's investigate this together." If he does this,

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he is preparing his children, step by step, for the day when they will have to get along without him. Under such parental guidance it will not profoundly matter if father himself is misinformed or wrong in many or most of his beliefs, because he will have given his children the curiosity to seek and find for themselves, and he will have already implicitly told them that there is no one place where they can expect to find all the answers. And he will also have given them the ability to revise their opinions with the passage of time and the acquisition of new information.

As a final comment I should like to remark that one of the terrible things about child psychologists of various schools is that they make the job of being a parent seem hopelessly complex. With vitamin deficiencies, Freudian theory, individual psychology theory, Jungian theory, conditioned reflex theory, and now general semantics theory to worry about, the problem of bringing up children seems just too much to contemplate without at least a Ph.D.! But I don't really think one needs to worry too much. So much of the literature about children is written on the basis of the study of disturbed children; hence the emphasis has been upon the disorders of psychological development. Some people, as you know, cannot read a medical book without feeling the symptoms of every disease described in the book. Similarly, when we read of the psychological disorders of children, of extremely sick children, some of us cannot help projecting our own experiences and our own children into all the case histories. If you do this, you can make yourself extremely miserable.

But there is also a lot of literature which is worth reading on the study of children in general--normal children, not sick children--and the implication I have found in much of this literature is that children are amazingly hardy creatures. Hundreds of mistakes can be made in the handling of children and they survive. Instead of being damaged they just grow smarter. Given a reasonable amount of care and affection, especially in their tenderest years, they grow, they mature, they develop insight--sometimes, it seems, in spite of the best efforts of their parents to gum things up.

Some of the finest young people I know were brought up by parents whom I would judge to be hopelessly incompetent. In one case I remember--the children are grown up and married now--when the children were tiny, I used to worry because their mother was so lazy and shiftless. The mother was so shiftless that the children learned to take care of themselves extremely well, so that they grew up to be the finest, most self-reliant young people you ever saw. Another set of parents were over-solicitous to the point of suffocating the child with attention and love, but the child managed to escape suffocation by finding enough associates outside the home, in friends' homes, to develop himself. In other words, there are many ways in which the child knows better than we do what he needs and what is good for him. So if we provide the child with the basic security of love and attempted understanding, there are many matters about which we can relax.

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Finally, it is to be emphasized that all books, articles, and lectures about child care, including everything I am saying in this article, are at relatively high levels of abstraction--they are generalizations. But your child is not a generalization. He is a particular child who has you for parents, your house for a home, a particular school to go to, a particular teacher, and a particular set of playmates on a particular street. What's right for him is not for any outsider to determine, not Gesell nor Spock nor Carl Rogers nor Brock Chisholm nor Lawrence Frank nor me nor anybody else. And often you will find yourself acting under the necessities of a particular situation without a single psychological theory or developmental chart to authorize you to do what you are doing. Under these conditions, if you can do what needs to be done firmly and without anxiety, because you know that no theory or body of theories can predict and cover every eventaulity, you are well on the way to becoming an adequate parent--and maybe a general semanticist too.

Reprinted in the office of the Head Start Regional Training Officer, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, November 26, 1968, from ETC: A Review of General Semantics, Vol. XXIII, No. 2, Copyright 1966, by permission of the author.

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Etc.: A Review of General Semantics Published by the International Society for General Semantics

ASSOCIATE EDITOR ANATOL RAPOPORT COMMITTEE ON MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, CHICAGO 37 EDITOR S. I. HAYAKAWA 1356 HYDE PARK BOULEVARD CHICAGO 15, ILLINOIS BUSINESS OFFICE: INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR GENERAL SEMANTICS 549 W. WASHINGTON BOULEVARD CHICAGO 6, ILLINOIS

April 13, 1951

Thank you for your most interesting and exciting letter. First of all, let me discuss with you your idea of translating and publishing in German a collection of articles from LTC. I want you to know at the beginning that we should be delighted to help you in any way to do this. The only reason we copyright our issues is to protect them against unauthorized use. We would like very much to have some of our work translated and republished. So all you have to do, so far as we are concerned, is to let me know exactly what articles you want clearance on, and clearance will be given immediately. If you want to discuss the contents with Rapoport and me, we should be glad to exchange correspondence with you on the subject.

I find I can't get the March ATLANTIC on the newsstands any more, but expect a friend of mine to bring one in on Monday. But I have long suspected that something of the kind Perry Miller talks about. Case in point: Oxford has been all worked up for the past several years, I am told, by the logical positivism of A. J. Ayer, whose main work, LANGUAGE, TRUTH AND LOGIC, was published in 1936. Sermons are preached and elder pundits are all worked up about the decay of moral values in the young, supposedly all attirbutable to Ayer's baleful influence. Joad writes a book pulling Ayer to pieces this year. Meanwhile, none of them know, or seem to know, anything about what's going on in semantics in the U.S., although semantics was in considerable part inspired by people like Ayer, and has proceeded to fill in some of Ayer's shortcomings. I have often thought that just one or two reasonable hep characters at Oxford might bring the whole controversy up to date instead of being stalled at a late 30's stage of semantic discussion -- but no such one or two hep characters have yet appeared.

This is only one instance, but I am sure this can be multiplied for all the social science disciplines, and probably for many other sciences as well. But in a way, we in the U.S. have ourselves partly to blame, since we have so impressed the world with our consumer goods, Europeans might well find it difficult to think of American production in any other terms. Hence, it seems to me you are doing a tremendously important job.

Something of this was in our minds when we recently, in the ISGS, started a "selling drive" to persuade our members to take $10 a year memberships, which would give then the privilege of sending a year's subscription to libraries anywhere in the world. We've been collecting names of university libraries from all over the place, and suggesting them to members, so that we are beginning to increase our foreign circulation noticeably. But this of course is a drop in the bucket. I hope you succeed in bringing more European scholars to a recognition of some of the things in American thought they are missing.

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I do hope you write that article for ATLANTIC on "Semantics Comes of Age." We need that kind of publicity, and you are right in feeling that ATLANTIC would be a good place for it.

I am glad you like ETC., feel that it is improving, and approve the new cover design. I have worked a long time gradually modifying and trying to improve the cover as well as the contents. I am happy to say that the reverse-plate is really knocking people in the eye.

About your PS regarding how I do my lecturing. I find that I do my best reading from a completely prepared paper. But the preparation is always done with a view to oral presentation -- in other words, every sentence has to fit in with the natural cadences of English and of my own way of talking. Then I read the paper as a speech, ad libbing only occasionally. BUT, since people on the whole tend to dislike a speech read from a prepared text, I have had to practice long and hard until now I can read it without the audience knowing that I am reading. I think I have the trick mastered now. But it's a lot of work, both in the writing and in the delivery.

I don't think I should write direct to Mr. Thomas Simpson. Why don't you put his name on one of the enclosed cards, and ask Jean Taylor to send him a sample copy as well as an invitation. That's our regular routine for introducing people to our journal.

Please write me again as soon as the spirit moves you. Anatol and I would like to help your work in any way we can.

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Begriffe und ihre Auslegung

Professor Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa (USA) hielt eine Vorlesung an der Ulmer Hochschule

Am Donnerstag traf Professor Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa in Ulm ein. Er befindet sich auf einer vom amerikanischen Außenministerium arrangierten Vortragsreise, die ihn bisher an alle skondinavischen und an mehrere westdeutsche Universitäten geführt hat. Professor Hayakawa hielt vor den Studierenden der Hochschule für Gestaltung am Donnerstag eine Vorlesung und gestern vormittag ein Seminar. Voraussichtlich bleibt er über das Wochenende in Ulm. Dieser Aufenthalt wird nur durch einen Vortrag unterbrochen, den er am Samstag auf Einladung der amerikanischen Armee vor Soldaten in Stuttgart halten wird. Nach seiner Vortragsreise, die am 15. Mai endet, nimmt Professor Hayakawa seine Lehrtätigkeit am San Francisco State College wieder auf.

Professor Hayakawa, der uns gestern früh während des Frühstücks im Bundesbahnhotel ein Interview gab, erklärte uns auf sehr humorvolle Art seine Lehrtätigkeit, die sich auf die Gebiete der Sprache, der Anthropologie, der Psychologie und der Soziologie erstreckt. Er redigiert daneben eine literarisch-wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift, die vom San Francisco State College herausgegeben wird, er ist Autor mehrerer Bücher, in denen er sich mit sprachwissenschaftlichen Problemen auseinandersetzt und von denen eines in vier Sprachen übersetzt wurde — aber nichts, sagt er, vermöge ihn so zu fesseln wie die Sportfischerei.

In Ulm las er, ebenso wie vor den Studenten der verschiedenen Universitäten, die er bisher besucht hat, über "semantics". Diese Bezeichnung ist im Wörterbuch nicht zu finden und schwer übersetzbar. Semantics betont die Wichtigkeit des Wissens, daß man mit einem Wort nicht nur sehr verschiedene Begriffe ausdrücken kann, sondern daß diese Begriffe von den Leuten auch noch unterschiedlich aufgefaßt werden. Oder, populär ausgedrückt: "What is semantics? It's the study of how not to be a damn fool!", sagte Professor Hayakawa zwischen Rühreiern mit Speck und einer Marmeladensemmel. Mit anderen Worten: er zeigt seinen Zuhörern die beste Art, sich nicht zu Narren zu machen, und diese Wissenschaft ist zweifellos jedermann von Nutzen. (Foto: s-.)

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Selected columns and articles from the Chicago Defender by S. I. Hayakawa and Margedant Peters

Second Thoughts

By S. I. HAYAKAWA

Jobs and Opportunities

ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY — jobs in industry, jobs in manufacturing, jobs in distribution — are open to Negroes on a large scale whenever they decide to think of economic opportunity not merely in terms of forcing unwilling companies to take them in, but in terms of creating CO-OPERATIVE ENTERPRISES OVER WHICH THEY CAN EXERCISE CONTROL.

Some portion, large or small, of every dollar that we spend puts economic power into the hands of organizations that sell us goods and services. You cannot buy a box of cornflakes without helping to put power into the hands of the cornflakes manufacturer. That power can be used for us or against us. That power is in itself neither good nor evil.

When that power is concentrated in government by means of the taxes we pay, it provides our teachers, it paves our streets (or some of them), it builds our hospitals, it procures for us social security, it provides us national security in our army and navy. The power that government possesses is exercised on the whole in the public interest, because. BY OUR VOTES, we express our opinions as to how that power shall be exercised.

Power Uncontrolled

WHEN THAT POWER, however, is concentrated in businesses and corporations over which the customer and consumer have NO CONTROL, we, the customers and consumers, have no chance to protest the abuses of that power. If we dislike their employment policies, we can threaten to take our trade elsewhere.

But when we take it elsewhere and find that all other businesses have similar employment policies, what is there left to do? We are compelled to buy from the company we disapprove of, or else do without.

The same is equally true of their other business policies, their profiteering, their poor quality of merchandise, their unsocial business practices. Under ordinary conditions, we have no means of making our objections felt, because WE HAVE NO SAY WHATEVER IN HOW ANOTHER MAN RUNS HIS BUSINESS.

How to Get Control

HOW, THEN, do we get a say in how business is run? The answer, of course, is that we must own our own businesses. But, you will ask, we have no money; how can we own businesses?

And the answer is clear and simple. Each of us individually hasn't got enough money to buy businesses, but groups of us together can CO-OPERATIVELY get together enough money to start little businesses. And as there little businesses grow and make money, more people will join us and we will have larger businesses.

Then, a number of those groups can get together and together they can buy or build their own wholesales. And groups of these wholesales can get together and buy factories. AND ALL THIS WILL BE OWNED AND CONTROLLED BY ORDINARY PEOPLE BY MEANS OF THEIR VOTES IN THEIR CO-OP STORES, in just the same way as the government of the United States is controlled by the votes of little people all over the country. This is democracy in economic life.

Impossible, you say? It's being done already, by little people all over the world. Owning their own businesses, they control quality, prices, and employment policies. Their economic life is not dictated to them by big corporations beyond their control. They run their own lives with their own votes, and make economic opportunities for themselves.

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Second Thoughts

By S. I. HAYAKAWA

Economic Power

LAST WEEK I wrote about economic power, and how it can be used for us or against us. Every time we pay out money, we are putting economic power into someone's hands. Some of the people to whom we give this power use it for our benefit: for example, charity organizations that help us when we are down; governments that protect us from our enemies; businesseses that use their power to provide better good or better services.

Others, however, to whom we give this money power, use it against us. They use the power only to grab more power. They charge whatever prices they like, they give us as miserable goods as they like, and they and fire as they like, with no consideration to justice or fair play.

The dollars we spend, therefore, even if they are mighty few dollars, are mighty things. They can help good businesses get better, and they can help mean businesses get meaner. Every dollar you spend is a vote, whether you know it or not, for the kinds of businesses you spend it in.

Who Are You Voting For?

I WANT to ask you, as you spend your dollars, what kind of business system you are voting for? Are you voting for a continuation of Jim Crow employment policies, or are you voting for firms that give genuine opportunities to Negro employes? Are you voting for firms that give you good merchandise, or are you voting for the firms that sell rubbish? Or, are you like the vast majority of people WHO ARE VOTING THEIR DOLLARS EVERY DAY, BUT DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF FIRMS THEY ARE VOTING FOR?

If you are like the majority in this respect—and it is difficult to know the employment policies of all the manufacturers whose goods we buy—then how can we play safe?

How can we be most sure that our money is not going to help strengthen some firm that is known to discriminate against Negroes, or some company that is known to have chiseled on government orders, putting their profits above the war emergency, or some company that is known to have been selling worthless goods and has therefore been brought to court by the Federal Trade Commission?

How To Play Safe

THE ONE KIND of business organization that is striving the hardest to improve the quality of goods, to abolish discrimination in employment, to establish the highest standards of dealing with consumers, is of course the consumer co-operative.

Why? Because to do otherwise would produce the absurd situation of people cheating themselves. Consumer-owned co-operatives, governed by the votes of the people, are run for service and not for profit. Everyone can join. Everyone is given an equal chance.

If there is a consumer co-operative anywhere near your home, that's where you should cast your vote-dollar. If there isn't a consumer co-operative in your town, you should start one.

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Little Ohio Town Sees Co-Ops Work Miracles

By MARGEDANT PETERS
(Defender Staff Correspondent)

CINCINNATI, Ohio. — In the biggest Negro-owned grocery store in the Cincinnati area is a thrilling story of little people who have learned the lessons of cooperation.

I paid a visit to the Rev. John M. Burgess at St. Simeon church near here to get the story because I had heard about the work which he and the people of his parish were doing.

The gripping and exciting story begins in 1936 when the depression was deep in Lockland and Glendale on the outskirts of Cincinnati. As usual among the Negroes of the community, it was worse than elsewhere. Most of the people, who were foundry laborers and unskilled workmen, were unemployed. In the all-Negro parish of St. Simon Episcopal church, 90 per cent of the parish was getting some kind of relief.

Most of the residents had come from the south only a few years before. The houses they lived in had been jerry-built by lumber and and real estate dealers and sold at enormous prices, just before the depression. The streets were unpaved and full of holes.

All in all, things were pretty dismal. What could be done to raise this community by its bootstraps and give it hope?

Lesson in Self-Help

The Rev. Westwell Greenwood, who was then pastor of St. Simon, had heard of consumers cooperation. With his encouragement, a cooperative store was started. Cooperation appealed to them as a Christian way of doing business and a way of hope for the Negro people, as well as a solution to their immediate food-buying problem.

These neighbors formed a buying club, called themselves the Valley Consumers Cooperative, paid down part of the money on their $10 shares, and sent in their first order. It was for canned tomatoes, rice, and apple butter.

From that little beginning has grown a thriving cooperative store, which is the biggest Negro-owned grocery store, and one of the biggest Negro-owned businesses in the Cincinnati area.

Built Own Establishment

After the growth of the membership and business had necessitated several enlargements of the premises, the society erected its own building—a modern tile building on a corner location. Today there are 200 members, who sold themselves last year more than $21,000 worth of goods, and many dollars of savings have gone back into the pockets of members.

The cooperators of Lockland know that this is just a beginning, that they have just begun to demonstrate what cooperative enterprise can do for the community Lockland and Glendale, though war factories have brought more jobs, still have their problems.

The point is that the cooperative store has brought hope by showing what people who have never owned much of anything can do for themselves.

Gain Courage

What Father Leo R. Ward of Notre Dame writes about the effect of cooperation on the poverty-stricken fishermen and miners of Nova Scotia also applies here:

"The chief immediate gain is not in money, but in courage. Poor people begin to get confidence from owning and doing; they begin to be persons, exercising freedom; and once they have their own little store— possess it themselves—and run it in a democratic way, they discover hope and self-respect. They are at last owners and not completely at the mercy of others."

The store is run on careful business principles, and records are kept with a completeness rare in a small grocery business. If all this had been accomplished by people of business experience, it would have been a triumph of community organization. As it is, the work of people of limited background and no previous business training, it is little less than miraculous.

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Second Thoughts

By S. I. HAYAKAWA

Theory and Practice

TWO WEEKS AGO, writing about the new consumer co-operative radio program "Here Is Tomorrow, Neighbor" (Were you listening, by the way? — and wasn't it fine?), I wrote, "Every co-operative society welcomes everybody regardless of religion or race. They promote their employes likewise regardless of religion or race." People have been asking me since, "Is that really true, or is it just a pleasant theory they never get around to practicing?"

No, it isn't "just a theory." Consumer co-operatives are like that, not only because they have the desire to be democratic, but because their very structure is such that the more democratic they are, the more efficient and prosperous they become.

In ordinary kinds of business, the situation is usually business versus idealism, but in consumer co-operatives the more thorough the idealism, the better it is for business. It works like this: If ten people in a co-operative buying club want to buy a shirt apiece costing $2, it will cost them $20 for the ten shirts. Supposing, however, that they discover that these shirts can be bought by the dozen at $21, or $1.75 apiece. If these ten people can get two more people to join them in the group purchase, they will all save 25 cents.

Think how silly a color-line or a religious or class prejudice would be under such circumstances. If you can take in two more members, you save 25 cents apiece. If you reject a couple of prospective members because you don't like the color of their skins or the religion of their ancestors, you simply gyp yourself out of your savings.

A Simple Mechanism

THERE'S NOTHING complicated about it. A Catholic co-operative society may find that if they invite into membership a group of neighboring Protestants, they can save money on quantity buying of fuel. So whether they like the Protestants or not, they will invite them into their co-operative society.

And once the two groups get together on co-operative fuel-buying, they find they can get together on a lot of other things besides — the co-operative buying of groceries, gasoline, clothes, or anything else — and eventually co-operative recreation and social life.

Maintaining Democracy

BUT WHAT, you may ask, prevents a small clique from getting control of a co-operative and running it for their own benefit? There is an important device that prevents such situations. It is the principle of ONE VOTE PER MEMBER REGARDLESS OF THE NUMBER OF SHARES HE OWNS.

The result of these principles (1) open membership; (2) one vote per member; (3) racial and religious neutrality, is that many Negroes occupy responsible positions in the co-operative movement.

Do you know, for example, about Wilmoth Bowen, manager of the Sumner Co-op Store in Minneapolis? Half the directors of this society are Negro, half are white. Mr. Bowen is the only Negro on the Co-operative Council of the Twin Cities, but he is chairman of the council.

Do you know about Leo Spillman of the Morgan Park Co-op in Chicago, who is not only treasurer of the Chicago Co-operative Union, but a director of Central States Co-operatives, Inc.? And about Poindexter Orr, a former director of Central States Co-operatives, who is now attorney for that organization? Ask any of these men if what I'm saying about co-operatives isn't true.

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Second Thoughts

By S. I. HAYAKAWA

Co-ops On The Air

A LARGE NUMBER of people all over the United States, white, black, yellow, brown, old-rose, sepia, gunmetal, coral, and blush (excuse me, I seem to have wandered into the wrong department), are going to be extremely pleased with themselves Sunday afternoon. February 14, when a new program called "Here Is Tomorrow, Neighbor," appears on the air.

They are going to be pleased with themselves because it is their own program, planned and paid for by their own organization, the Co-operative League of the U.S.A., with which they are all affiliated through belonging to small co-operative store societies throughout the nation.

Consumer co-operatives are genuinely of the people, by the people, for the people, and they not only preach the principle of religious and racial equality — they practice it. Every co-operative society welcomes everybody regardless of religion or race. They promote their employes likewise, regardless of religion or race. Negro groups have also formed and are successfully operating co-operative societies. Within the fellowship of consumer co-ops, there is genuine democracy at work.

Telling The World

AND NOW, IN their new radio program, they are out to tell the world of their existence and invite others to join them. Negro co-operative societies in Chicago, the Peoples Consumers Co-op on 47th street, the Morgan Park Co-op, the Ida B. Wells Co-op, the Thrift Co-operative Buying club at 4609 S. Langley, the famous Negro Co-op of Gary, Ind., the Gibraltar Buying club in Evanston, Ill., will all, I am sure, be arranging listening parties this Sunday.

For the consumer co-operatives, not long ago mainly restricted to little hole-in-the-wall enterprises, are coming into their own as a big business. But they're not at all like other big businesses. In ordinary big business the profits go from you to the retailer to the wholesaler to the manufacturer and on up.

In co-operatives they go just the other way around. The co-operative manufacturing plant pays its profits back to the wholesale; the co-operative wholesale pays its profits back to the co-operative retail; the co-operative retail store pays its profits back to the customer — that's you. Why? Because you as customer are also the owner, and the more you buy, the more you get back.

Democracy In Action

DEMOCRACY, CO-OPERATORS believe, is not something to talk about and merely pray for. It's something that must have a solid foundation in the economic life of the people. Profits follow ownership and control. If ownership and control are in the hands of a few, the few will get all the profits. Consumer co-ops are a way of doing business that start out with the customer being the owner, so that the profits will not accumulate in great piles in the hands of a few but will be spread evenly among the people who have to do the buying and need the money.

Co-operatives, said Vice President Wallace, are the dominant economic idea of the future. That's what co-operators think too, and that is why their radio program is entitled "Here Is Tomorrow, Neighbor."

The program will be heard 13 consecutive Sunday afternoons, and will be carried by 30 stations from Massachusetts to California. Here are some of the schedules: Chicago, WCFL, 1:45-2:00; Pittsburgh, KDKA, 1:15-1:30; Washington, D. C., WJSV. 1:30-1:45; Toledo, WSPD, 2:00-2:15; Dayton, WING, 4:45-5:00; Columbus, Ohio, WHKC, 4:00-4:15; Philadelphia, WFIL, 2:30-2:45; New York, WQXR, 5:30-5:45; Boston, WHDH, 2:45-3:00; Los Angeles, KFWB, 2:45-3:00; Milwaukee, WISN, 2:00-2:45; Spokane, KHQ, 3:45-4:00. Look in your local papers for cities not listed.

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Self-Image, Race, and Semantics

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Aspects of Interracial Understanding: First of a Series of Lecture/Workshops: Self-Image, Race & Semantics: S. I. Hayakawa

Conducted by the INTERDISCIPLINARY RESOURCES CENTER on the NEGRO HERITAGE FREDERICK DOUGLASS INSTITUTE - MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART

with the support of the CURRICULUM DEPARTMENT and the SCHOOL DESEGREGATION PROJECT of the PUBLIC SCHOOLS of the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

PROGRAM

Friday, April 19, 1968; Gallaudet College Auditorium General Lecture for District of Columbia School Teachers

Saturday, April 20, 1968; Faith Tabernacle Church Frederick Douglass Institute - Museum of African Art Seminar/Workshops for Representatives of Curriculum Branches

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Friday, April 19th: General Lecture: (Gallaudet College Auditorium)

           

2:00 p.m.	Welcoming Remarks, Mr. Benjamin Henley, Deputy Superintendent of Schools
	Introduction, Mr. Warren Robbins, Director, Frederick Douglass Institute/Museum of African Art
	SELF-IMAGE, RACE, and SEMANTICS, Dr. S. I. Hayakawa
3:15	Intermission, Auditorium Lobby, Viewing of Exhibition from Museum of African Art Refreshment, courtesy of the Pepsi-Cola Company
3:45	Discussion, Moderator: Mr. John W. Haywood, Program Coordinator, School Desegregation Project

Saturday, April 20th: Seminar/Workshops: (Faith Tabernacle Church, 300 A St., N.E.)

                 

9:30 a.m.	Registrationto cover the cost of lunch and help defray a small portion of the expenses incurred, a modest registration fee of $2.50 is being asked of teachers participating in the Seminar/Workshop Sessions., Informal Introductions and Coffee
10:00	Announcements, Mr. Robbins
	Demonstration on "Perception and Assumption"
10:15	Intensive Seminar Session, Dr. Hayakawa
12:15	Luncheon: Faith Tabernacle Church
	Informal Tour of exhibits on Negro History and African Art
	Frederick Douglass Institute/Museum of African Art,
1:45	Workshops: Faith Tabernacle Church, Coordinators: Mrs. LuVerne Walker, Miss Elaine Johnson A. COMMUNICATION B. HUMANITIES C. SCIENCE AND SEMANTICS D. EARLY CHILDHOOD

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Committees and Panel Participants

Co-Chairmen:

Mrs. LuVerne Walker; Director, Department of Curriculum, D. C. Public Schools Dr. Morton Sobel; Director, School Desegregation Project, D. C. Public Schools Mr. Warren Robbins; Director, Frederick Douglass Institute/Museum of African Art

Planning Committee:

Mrs. Nora Lee Banks, Mrs. Charlotte Brooks, Walter Brooks, Rufus Browning, Mrs. Jewell Coleman, Dr. Mildred Cooper, Elio Gasperetti, Carroll Greene, Jr., John Haywood, Jr., Mrs. Elaine Johnson, Thomas McManus, Robert Pellaton, Joseph Penn, Mrs. Anne Pitts, Miss Sally Tancil, Dr. Vi Marie Taylor, James Taylor, Jr., Mrs. Bernice Tillett, Sister Christopher Torrence, Mrs. Octavia Webb, Virgil Young

Panel Chairman and Discussion Leaders:

Friday Panel: John Haywood, Jr., Moderator; Mrs. Charlotte Brooks, Samuel LaBeach, Joseph Penn, Mrs. Theresa Posey, Miss Sally Tancil

Saturday Workshops:

• A. COMMUNICATION
  • Chairman: Mrs. Charlotte Brooks
  • Recorder: Mrs. Mary Turner
  • Panelists:
• B. HUMANITIES
  • Chairman: Mr. Joseph Penn
  • Recorder: Mrs. Bernice Tillett
  • Panelists:
• C. SCIENCE & SEMANTICS
  • Chairman: Mrs. Nora Lee Banks
  • Recorder: Mrs. Dorothy Strode
  • Panelists:
• D. EARLY CHILDHOOD
  • Chairman: Miss Sally Tancil
  • Recorder: Mrs. Ouida Maedel
  • Panelists:
    • Mrs. Juanita Fletcher
    • Mrs. Mary Turner
    • Mr. Walter Brooks
    • Mr. Edward James

• Mr. Elio Gasperetti
• Mrs. Beth Rogers
• Sister Christopher Torrence
• Mr. Virgil Young

• Dr. Wayne Taylor
• Mr. Richard Teasley
• Mrs. Margaret MacIver
• Mr. Daniel Harmeling

• Mrs. Cozette Powell
• Mrs. Octavia Webb
• Mrs. Elaine Johnson
• Mrs. Alma Blackmon

Frederick Douglass Institute/Museum of African Art Participants:

Mrs. Alice Bell, Mrs. Jewell Coleman, Mr. Edward Cutler, Mr. Olujimi Daniel, Mr. William Lanier, Mrs. Beth Rogers

We wish to express our appreciation to the Faith Tabernacle Church for the use of its facilities; to Gallaudet College for the use of its Auditorium; to the Educational Resource Center of the District of Columbia Schools for the use of video-taping equipment; and to the Pepsi-Cola Company, and the Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Washington, D. C.

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Hayakawa

Professor of English at San Francisco State College, author of Language in Thought and Action and numerous other books on the role of words in human behavior, Dr. Hayakawa, as a proponent of a sane approach to language usage, is one of the most active and sought-after lecturers in America. Founder of the International Society for General Semantics, he is the editor of its journal, ETC., which for more than a quarter of a century has chronicled the increasing application of semantic principles in evaluating problems of American education, public life, social relations, individual human behavior and international understanding. His own background as a member of a minority "racial" group has particularly equipped him to understand and comment upon barriers to inter-racial understanding in the United States.

Semantics

^*General Semantics is the study of what makes human beings human beings. Moreover, in its inquiry into the misuse of language, whether this takes the form of nationalistic madness, footless political and religious controversy, superstition, mental illness or racial prejudice, it is also the study of what makes human beings sometimes less than human. There are practical implications to General Semantics, too. In thinking about human beings and their interaction with each other--in the family, in business, in education, in race relations, in therapy--nothing is so important as having at one's fingertips a method of guarding against the pitfalls of language. Words give an aura of permanence and stability to fleeting events. They give the illusion of substance to shadows. With words we unite things that are forever separate, and separate that which is indivisible. . . . Just as a spear-fisherman must make allowances for the way in which water distorts his vision, so must the student of human affairs be aware of the degree to which the language he speaks pulls reality out of shape. The study of General Semantics should have the effect, then, of heightening our awareness of the problems of language and also heightening our awareness of the complexity of the non-verbal realities which language more or less adequately codifies.

^*(Abstract from the introduction to Symbol, Status and Personality by S. I. Hayakawa)

SELECTED READING            

Hayakawa, S. I.	Language in Thought and Action Symbol, Status and Personality Language, Meaning, and Maturity Our Language and Our World The Use and Misuse of Language
Chase, Stuart	The Tyranny of Words
Irwin, Lee	Language Habits in Human Affairs
Johnson, Wendell	People in Quandries
Minteer, Catherine	Words and What They Do To You

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Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 95^th Congress, First Session, Vol. 123, No. 129, Washington, Thursday, July 28, 1977: Senate

Mr. HAYAKAWA. I thank the distinguished Senator from Missouri, and I am also grateful to the distinguished Senator from Louisiana for his wise remarks.

Mr. President, rightly or wrongly, many of us who have been involved in the discussion of Senate bill 926 have seen this proposed legislation as a threat to the two-party system. The far-reaching discussions on this floor have revived in my mind some reflections on the two-party system and indeed on the American political system, as a whole, that I shall share with my distinguished colleagues.

Vive La Difference

Have you ever tried to explain to a foreigner the difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties? It is an almost impossible job because, first few of us have been able to define that difference for ourselves and, second Europeans especially try to understand the difference between one party and another in ideological terms; whereas, ideology does not matter all that much to Americans.

Both parties include, although in different proportions, the rich and the poor; urban people and rural people; blacks and whites; industrial interests as well as agricultural interests; and both parties are highly pragmatic, in the American tradition. Each party borrows ideas freely from the other, so that the great Republican idea of one decade becomes, two decades later, a great Democratic idea, and vice versa.

Hence the two parties differ from each other, not in the interests they espouse or the ideologies they represent, but in psychology. And, if I may be psychological and diagnostic for a minute, it seems to me that the two parties do differ from each other in psychology.

Republicans tend to feel a sense of proprietorship toward the economy. That is, to put it bluntly, they act as if they owned the joint. They have the psychology of insiders. Democrats, on the whole, feel marginal, like outsiders.

These feelings are psychological. They are often quite independent of the facts. Some Republicans are on welfare. Some Democrats are insiders, and rich and powerful.

Nevertheless, this psychological difference does serve, in a rough way, to distinguish the modality of the two parties.

Generally, Republicans tend to include insiders in the business system, those who actually own or manage a sufficient portion of the system to give them a sense of proprietorship. That is they act as if they do own the point.

Second, there are those who believe they are about to own the joint, or they would like to be mistaken for those who do; and third, the second and third generation descendants of immigrant families, those described as having upward mobility, who are attempting to expunge from themselves the remaining status of being outsiders, and so they become Republicans.

In the case of the radical right, it seems to me that they are those who believe that the joint is rightfully theirs and is being taken away from them, especially by those who are outsiders, often thought to be Communists. And, of course, the Republican Party includes thousands and thousands who are Republicans by force of habit, as well as assorted opportunists, chiselers, and punks.

Similarly, Democrats seem to include, first, those who do own the joint or a comfortable percentage thereof, but remain startled at their good fortune, and therefore tend to remain identified with those who still look forward to getting their share. Second, the Democrats include immigrants and their descendants, at least until the feeling of being outsiders wears off. Third, it seems to me southerners, Catholics, Jews, and blacks tend to be Democrats, because they believe that Gentiles, Protestants, northerners, and whites own the joint.

Intellectuals are usually Democrats; their feelings of being left out are intensified by their conviction that by rights they ought to be running the joint.

And, of course, the Democratic Party includes thousands and thousands who are Democrats by force of habit; also assorted opportunists, chiselers, and punks.

In the light of these psychological differences, certain rhetorical differences between the two parties assume a clearer significance. For example, for Democrats it is the task of Government to do battle with the powerful business interests that are depriving the common people of their economic opportunities and subverting their political rights.

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For Republicans it is the task of Government to help a prosperous nation become more prosperous, so that everyone can share in the good life that results therefrom.

The characteristic Democratic rhetoric is represented by President Franklin Roosevelt, who effectively used such phrases as "princes of privilege," "economic royalists," and "malefactors of great wealth" to rally the people to his side. However inspiring these phrases were to Democrats, they fell harshly on Republican ears. At best they sounded to Republicans like demagoguery. At worst they seemed to be a call to class warfare.

On the other side, Republican oratory sounds strangely heartless to Democratic ears. Republicans inveigh against "creeping socialism" and "Federal handouts." At the same time as they favor more generous tax write-offs and depletion allowances for industry, they grow furious at what they believe to be an increasing number of "welfare chiselers." Their enthusiasm for "free enterprise" and "individual initiative" reminds Democrats of the elephant who cried, as he danced among the chickens, "Every man for himself!"

The miracle of America is that the poor have been made less poor, under legislation often originated by Democrats but endorsed by Republicans, at the same time as industry and agriculture have continued to prosper, under legislation often originated by Republicans and endorsed by Democrats.

The two parties are, despite the rhetoric, not opposites but complementaries, and I trust they will both be around for a long time to come.

Additionally, it seems to me that the two parties steal ideas from each other with great regularity, and then claim them as their own. Nevertheless, there is a difference in emphasis between the two parties in the way in which they approach the problems of power. Generally speaking Republicans prefer to look upon Government as a referee, adjudicating and adjusting the conflicting interests different interest group, different regions, different economic blocs. "That Government governs best that governs least," say the Republicans, quoting a famous Democrat.

President Truman's characterization of Congress in 1948 as a "do-nothing Congress" did not trouble the Republicans, who generally feel that that is what Congress ought to do.

Democrats, on the other hand, tend to think of Government as mover and shaker—the initiator of constructive and necessary social actions. The Social Security Act, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Rural Electrification Administration —these and many ambitious measures like them are Democratic achievements, strenuously opposed by Republicans at the time they were proposed, but ultimately endorsed by the Republicans.

So we come back again to the question of rhetoric.

Democrats are roused to enthusiasm by activist slogans such as Wilson's "New Freedom," Roosevelt's "New Deal," Truman's "Fair Deal," Kennedy's "New Frontier" and Lyndon Johnson's "The Great Society." There is always a touch of euphoria or, in Republican eyes, megalomania, in Democratic aspirations.

Republican aspirations are phrased in more modest terms: "Back to Normalcy," "Keep Cool with Coolidge," "A Chicken in Every Pot," "A Full Dinner Pail." The limits of euphoria in Republican oratory were reached in the modest enthusiasm of "I like Ike."

Traditionally, Republicans have aspired to be good housekeepers. "Clean out the mess in Washington." They have tended to consolidate gains already made and beyond that to leave well enough alone.

The late Adlai Stevenson aptly summarized the difference between the two parties when he said, "The most important thing the Republicans—in the Eisenhower administration—have done is not to repeal the New Deal."

Of course, the foregoing are simplifications, and the tendencies I have mentioned are not exclusive to either party. Nevertheless, the two conceptions of Government as referee, Republican, and Government as activist, Democratic, serve as convenient points of reference.

Americans tend to want, after a long period of rapid social change and turmoil, the relative tranquility of a Republican regime. After the turmoil of the Second World War and the Korean war, America turned to the reassuring and placid father figure of Dwight Eisenhower.

And after the turbulence of the civil rights movement, the war in Vietnam, and the student revolt of the 1960's, Americans sought a slowing down of the pace of social change by voting for Richard Nixon, as opposed to Senator GEORGE MCGOVERN, who seemed to be promising even more rapid change on behalf of the young, the poor, and the black.

It must be recalled that much happened during the Nixon administration toward the restoration of a measure of national tranquillity. Gains in civil rights were consolidated and a strong black middle class began to emerge. American troops were withdrawn from Vietnam. Detente with Communist powers lessened our anxieties about international conflict.

Nevertheless, the Nixon administration was a huge disappointment to those seeking a period of peace and quiet. The unprecedented forced resignation of Vice President Agnew, the two years of uproar over Watergate, followed by the unprecedented forced resignation of the President—these kept the Nation in a state of mental turmoil quite as serious as that caused by Vietnam and the student demonstrations of 1960s.

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So the period of order, tranquillity, and the consolidation of gains the voters were seeking in 1968 did not arrive, despite the 6 years since then of a Republican Presidency.

Now the Democrats are getting power and one wonders what they will do with that power. Will they continue to be shakers and movers, introducing one great program after another? There are signs in that direction. Or will they sense the national mood and dedicate themselves to the functions traditionally performed by Republicans?

Even as we look ahead, many of the questions facing us are retrospective. How far have we come? What have we done wrong? What have we neglected? Have any of our programs produced unintended side effects?

The great need today is to put our national house in order, to regain our confidence in our political system. It is fervently to be hoped that Democrats understand this fact, and will, for a couple of years at least, behave like Republicans. It seems to me, however, that S. 926, which we are discussing now, is a step in the wrong direction in the sense that it is another example of shaking, moving, stirring things up, and usurping initial power on the part of the Federal Government instead of going back to a reliance on that which has served so well in the past.

I would like to continue with a few historical reflections on the subject of Thomas E. Dewey. I am reminded of Thomas E. Dewey because not long ago a story with a Washington dateline said, "Senator JESSE HELMS urged conservatives to begin now to build a third party that can go to the voters next year"—he is talking about 1976, I believe—"if the Republicans and Democrats fail to produce a program of freedom."

In 1975, there was a lot of talk about the formation of a third party. Third party advocates are often zealots. If they are conservatives, they want to make no concessions with liberalism. If they are liberals, they want no compromise with conservatism.

This way of thinking, Thomas E. Dewey told us, is politically unwise. He was former Governor of the State of New York, twice Republican candidate for the Presidency, and chief strategist for the nomination of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 at the Republican National Convention. He certainly knew what he was talking about.

Dewey wrote in 1950:

Under our two-party system, we have none of the instabilities of the multiparty system, but we do achieve our own kind of coalitions. We make our coalitions within the parties and instead of making them after the election, as most European parliaments do, we make them before the election. Every 4 years the national conventions the two parties present deep and bitter controversies. There are those who "take a walk" from the convention, either publicly or quietly. But finally the coalition is achieved and the party goes on to fight the election.

Why do the parties have these bitter internal fights?

This is still Thomas Dewey talking.

Because each party really represents a composite spectrum of roughly similar interests. Each contains farmers; each contains industrial workers; each includes businessmen; each attracts men and women from every walk and station of life. . . . Each party is to a considerable extent a reflection of the other.

The result is that . . . the parties have not been too far apart on most fundamentals of our system. This means that the choice of one or the other party during this period (since the Civil War) has not represented anything like a revolution. . . . As a people we have learned to distrust and avoid extremes of principles and interests in our public life.

Dewey, therefore, had little patience with those who are unwilling or unable to form coalitions with those with whom they disagree. As he said:

These impractical theorists with a passion for neatness demand that our parties be sharply divided, one against the other, in interest, membership and doctrine. They want to drive all moderates and liberals out of the Republican Party and then have the remainder join forces with the conservative groups of the South. Then they would have everything neatly arranged, indeed. The Democratic Party would be the liberal-to-radical party. The Republican Party would be the conservative-to-reactionary party. The results would be neatly arranged, too. The Republicans would lose every election and the Democrats would win every election. It may be a perfect theory but it would result in a one-party system and finally totalitarian government.

"As you may suspect, I am against it," said Thomas Dewey.

The lessons of history, especially of recent history, are clear. Ideological liberals, dissatisfied with the moderate liberalism of Harry S. Truman, ran Henry A. Wallace as their candidate on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, and the Progressive Party hardly made a dent in the final result.

Ideological conservatives of 1964 were delighted with Senator BARRY GOLDWATER. Instead of forming a working coalition with moderate Republicans, they vanquished them, in effect driving them out of the party. As a result, Lyndon Johnson, seen by most voters of the time as the man of the middle, won by a large margin.

Again, ideological liberals rejected the moderate liberalism of HUBERT HUMPHREY, rode roughshod over the traditional machinery of the Democratic Party, and nominated Senator GEORGE MCGOVERN for the Presidency in 1972. A huge majority, believing that the Democrats had been taken over by fanatics of the left, voted for Richard Nixon.

The moral, then, is clear. The genius of American politics lies in the art of making improbable coalitions: the black Detroit auto worker joins the University of California professor of sociology and

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the bourbon sipping southern aristocrats. All these three gentlemen are in the same Democratic Party, although probably they could not stand each other socially. The Nebraska farmer joins the fried chicken franchise operator on U.S. Highway 66 and a director of the Chase Manhattan Bank. Those three are the Republican Party. What Governor Dewey so well knew as the reconciliation of irreconcilables constitute the parties of the United States.

All these lead to some reflections I have had on the political process as a semanticist.

I should like to present a few reflections on language, politics, and intellectuals in an attempt to throw light on the problem before us.

There was a very great language scholar named Benjamin Lee Whorf of Hartford, Conn., who once said:

Whenever agreement or assent is reached in human affairs, this agreement is reached by linguistic processes, or else it is not reached.

By linguistic processes he meant, of course, discussion, argument, persuasion: definitions and judgments; promises and contracts—all those exchanges of words by means of which human beings interact with each other.

Without language—without words—there is no such thing as the future. Have you ever thought about the fact that a simple expression like "hamburger next Tuesday" is meaningless to a dog—even a very intelligent dog? Language creates society. "Mary and John are married" is a statement about the present and also about the future. The term "married," points to the obligations that Mary and John have towards each other in the days and years ahead. The future is real to us because it is formulated into words.

Society is a network of agreements about future conduct. Here, let us say, are two tribes, the Blues and the Reds. Both tribes want exclusive access to the fish in Clearwater Bay. If the two tribes are equally strong, they will fight and fight and kill each other—until someone has the good sense to say, "Since we can't lick them and they can't lick us, let's call a conference and see what we can work out."

So what Benjamin Lee Whorf calls "linguistic processes" are initiated. Delegates from the two tribes argue and shout and scream, but ultimately they come to an agreement. The Reds will fish the bay Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; the Blues on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays; no fishing on Sundays.

People who work out agreements of this kind to reconcile what seem to be irreconcilables are known as politicians. Politicians are people who resolve, through linguistic processes, conflicts that would otherwise have to be solved by force.

But, unfortunately, politicians are rarely thanked for their efforts. Many of the Blues are disappointed. "Look at what the politicians gave to the Reds," they say. "What a sellout! They must have been bribed."

The Reds are equally critical of their delegates. "Everyone knows," they say, "that God intended the bay for the exclusive use of us Reds, but now the Blues act as if they had equal rights to it. What we need are delegates who are men of principle, not compromisers."

The results of a political process are never satisfactory to all concerned. Give the Arabs what they want, and the Israeli are furious. Give the employers what they want, and the unions are apoplectic. Introduce a measure of gun control, and the National Rifle Association is enraged.

So, if the political process is successful, all get only part of what they want, and none get all they want. And everyone blames the politicians for their disappointments.

This is not an easy point to understand. It has often seemed to me that the political process is far too subtle, far too complex, for men of words—intellectuals and journalists—to understand. Intellectuals, with their passion for logic and order, often disdain the democratic process. They are fascinated by Plato's perfect republic governed by philosopher-kings.

Some men are gold, said Plato, some are silver, some are iron and lead. Of course, women did not count in that world. Imagining themselves to be the "gold" of Plato's definition, intellectuals are easily seduced by Marxism, which insists that government be in the hands of those who understand such matters as historic necessity and dialectical materialism—that is, intellectuals. This is, no doubt, the reason that there are more Marxists than Democrats and Republicans combined in so many university departments of philosophy.

Mike Royko of the Chicago Daily News is a characteristic journalistic critic of politics. He wrote a book, "Boss," attacking and ridiculing Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago as corrupt, ruthless, venal, and given to making shady alliances and ridiculous mistakes in English grammar. I am sure Royko thought he had effectively destroyed Daley's political career. But what happened?

Not long after the book was published, Daley was returned to office—at the age of 73 and allegedly no longer in the best of health—with the biggest majority of his long political career. Apparently, there is something important about the political process that Royko failed to understand.

Ultimately, disgusted with politicians, some people, from time to time, yearn for government without politics. Sometimes, to their dismay, they get it, as in Soviet Russia, Poland, and North Korea, where

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the political process has been abolished, or, as in Northern Ireland, where the political process has failed.

As Americans, we need more than ever today to understand and cherish the political process. It is admittedly untidy. It is often illogical and confusing. But we must not forget, as our responsibility, that it is the very essence of civilization.

(Mr. METZENBAUM assumed the chair.)

Mr. HAYAKAWA. Mr. President, if I may go back to the point at issue, S. 926, in our discussion of this issue of public financing, it seems to me that we have fairly effectively struck down most arguments in favor of this bill. Let me briefly enumerate the major ones once again.

My first objection is to the argument that this bill would insure the pristine innocence of campaign contributions. The idea of public financing is based on the assumption that we are all corruptible. I respectfully submit that most Congressmen and Senator are not open to the corrupting influence of private contributions of special interest groups. If that assumption is incorrect and we are dealing with morally spineless legislators who are open to whatever corrupting bribe is offered, then I object that this legislation does literally nothing to stop this. In fact, it increases the possibilities of corruption. If the proponents of this legislation are so worried about the possibilities of our own depravity, why did they not support the attempt to strengthen the disclosure provision of the Federal Election Campaign Act? Indirect corporate and union expenditures constitute substantial special interest influence on political campaigns. But this bill does not even limit contributions by special interests, much less eliminate them. It merely supplements these contributions with money from the U.S. Treasury.

The bill, in fact, seems to strengthen special interests. These groups can spend unlimited amounts advocating the defeat or election of a candidate. A particular special interest must observe a ceiling on how much it can give to a candidate, but no limit applies as to how much it can spend independent of that candidate to urge his election or defeat. So, an organization might spend large sums of money to oppose a particular candidate whose ability to reply is constrained by the expenditure ceiling he must observe as a condition of accepting public funds. If this is the case, how can we accept this bill as an effort to reduce public uneasiness about congressional ethics?

As this proposal is so ineffective in dealing with the supposed corruption of the electoral process, why, then, is it being pushed for passage on the Senate floor? It seems to me quite obvious that there is another issue at stake. This legislation serves the special interest of the incumbent, which we shall all be the next time we are up for election. More specifically, it serves the interest of the majority party.

Why is this legislation even being considered? Have we come so far in our evolution as responsive representatives of the American people to become opportunistic politicians that we are unashamed to pass such self-serving legislation? If the public truly understood what this legislation would do, it would further erode their already shaky faith in their elected Representatives. As Senators, we must not take unfair advantage of our current positions to ease the way for ourselves when we run for reelection.

Neither should the major parties take advantage of their numbers to effect the passage of this highly prejudiced legislation. S. 926 requires minor party candidates and independents to reach a contribution threshold before they are eligible for public funds. The purpose of the threshold is to demonstrate public support. But even after it has been reached, the bill discriminates against such candidates by giving them funding only on a matching basis, while both block grants and matching funds are available to major parties. The major parties, already having great advantages over minor parties and independents, are given yet a further edge by the funding discrimination in this bill. Those who are truly concerned about effecting an equitable election plan could not possibly vote for this bill. On the other hand, those of us who are here to further our own interests, to protect our own situation, would be quite justified in doing so.

A politician is one who is concerned about the next election. A statesman is concerned about the next generation. This seems to be an unprecedented opportunity to show our true colors.

I thank the Chair.

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Resolution of the Board of Directors of U.S. English, at a Meeting at the Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles, California, January 19, 1986

The Constitutional Amendment proposed by U.S. English seeks to establish English as the official language of the United States. Nothing in the proposed amendment prohibits the use of languages other than English in unofficial contexts: family communications, religious ceremonies, sports and entertainment, or private business.

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Questions Often Asked About Campaigns to make English our Official Language - S. I. Hayakawa, Honorary Chairman, U.S. English

1). What will happen if a law to make English the official language is passed? What changes will take place in the laws and practices of state and local governments?

The new law will produce little or no change in people's lives. Most businesses will continue, as now, to be conducted in English -- certainly the business of government. Some businesses will continue to be conducted in foreign languages, as has long been the case in ethnic neighborhoods.

The basic reason for designating English as the official language of any state is to prevent the naming of a second official language for that state, or for any political subdivision thereof. The record of nations with two official languages is not reassuring: for example, Canada and Belgium. Differences of language, where intensified by differences of religion and race, make social harmony impossible, as in Sri Lanka and much of India.

But a common language can gradually overcome differences of religion and race, as is happily the case in the United States, where racial and religious intolerance have been diminishing slowly but steadily within the lifetime of all of us.

People in a democratic society are ruled by the consent of the governed. For more than two hundred years, non-English-speaking immigrants have learned the English language in order to know what they are consenting to, as well as to take part in the political processes that lead to that consent.

Nothing in proposed amendments will prohibit the use of languages other than English in unofficial contexts: family communications, religious ceremonies, sports and entertainment, or private business.

2). Public health and safety; drivers' license tests?

Public health and safety are an important part of our government's business -- especially of local governments. Common sense dictates that street signs and warnings of hazardous conditions should be posted in whatever languages necessary to protect the public.

Drivers' license tests, in whatever language, are needed to protect all of us from unlicensed drivers. Warning labels in appropriate languages on agricultural pesticides are necessary for the protection of the public, and even more for agricultural workers.

3.) Will telephone companies have to cut back their multilingual services?

Why should they? Telephone companies are private enterprises, not an arm of the government. What they want for their customers and what the customers want of them is their own business. The same applies to business directories ("Yellow Pages") supplied by telephone companies in large cities.

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4). What are the unstated and hidden goals behind these proposed laws? Stricter controls on immigration? Elimination of interpreters in courts of law?

Speaking on behalf of U.S. English, some of our active members (1, for example), believe in more generous immigration quotas. Some, no doubt, believe in more restrictive policies. But none of this is the business of our organization. Immigration policy has never been discussed in the board meetings of U.S. English, our national organization, which was founded in 1983.

Interpreters in courts of law for non-English-speaking defendants or witnesses will continue to be used. These are required by centuries-old traditions of legal procedure, both in British and American law.

5). What will be the effect on bilingual ballots of a law making English the official language of a state?

Bilingual ballots are required by a 1975 amendment to the Voting Rights Act, which is a federal law and therefore cannot be changed without federal action.

However, it should be noted that there is a glaring contradiction between U.S. naturalization law and the amendment of 1975 requiring the "bilingual ballot." The naturalization laws require that a candidate for U.S. citizenship must be "able to read, write and speak English in ordinary usage" in order to be naturalized. This law is still in effect although a waiver may be granted for persons over 50 years of age who have resided in the U.S. for at least 20 years.

One has to be examined for knowledge of English in order to be naturalized. One has to be a citizen in order to vote. Why, then the ballot in foreign languages, except perhaps for people over 50?

Furthermore, I am shocked that non-white minorities love the bilingual ballots. They are a clear instance of white condescension towards non-whites. Bilingual ballots are available to brown people, like Mexicans and Puerto Ricans; to red people, like American Indians; to yellow people from Asia. French-speaking Canadians in Maine and Vermont are not entitled to bilingual ballots, apparently because they are white and assumed to be smart enough not to need special help.

6). What will be the effect on education of English as our official language?

The Lau decision of the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1974 that the failure of public schools to teach English to non-English-speaking pupils "denies them a meaningful opportunity to participate in the public educational program and, thus, violates Section 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . . . ."

Insofar as "bilingual education," so-called, fails to teach English to children of "limited English proficiency," as has often been charged, its methods, where ineffective, will be subject to legal challenge. Where bilingual methods are successful in the teaching of English, there will be no problem.

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"One Nation . . . Indivisible . . . ?" S. I. Hayakawa

(Address before the forum on "Constitutional Values and Contemporary Policy," sponsored by the Washington Institute for Values in Public Policy,"

MAY I START by telling you a little about myself, since many have wondered how it is that a movement aimed at making English the official language of the United States is being headed by a man with a Japanese name?

My father, Ichiro Hayakawa, was born in 1884 in Yamanashi Prefecture in Japan. Like many thousands of young people born in the wake of the Meiji Restoration, which ended almost two hundred and fifty years of the rigid isolationism of the Tokugawa Shogunate, he wanted to be part of the great movement toward the westernization of Japan. Having prepared himself by studying English earnestly in high school, he took off for San Francisco at the age of eighteen to work, like many Japanese youths of that time, as a houseboy while continuing his studies.

The high point of his career in this period was when he joined the navy to become a mess attendant on a training ship, the USS Pensocola, which was moored at Goat Island, now known as Yerba Buena Island. Father has told me that on his days off he would go to San Francisco to call on the office of the Japanese language newspaper, Shin Sekai (New World), to offer for publication his translations

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into Japanese of English and American poetry -- Tennyson, Wordsworth, Longfellow. Many of his translations were published.

Father remained proud in after years of his Japanese translation of an English version of Heine's "Die Lorelei." The files of Shin Sekai were destroyed, however, in the San Franicsco earthquake and fire of 1906, leaving me unable to prove that my father was a poet.

Decades later, I learned more about what studying English meant to many Japanese houseboys in San Francisco in the early 1900s. In 1943, I visited the War Relocation Center at Colorado, where a friend of my father's from student days, a Mr. Kodama, was living as a guest of the U. S. Government. I really didn't know him, because his friendship with father dated back to their bachelor days. However, he gave me a royal welcome, having bought a new used car (it was still wartime) to pick me up at the University of Denver, where I was teaching that summer.

Back at the camp, Mr. Kodama told me about how proud he was that I had become a professor and had written a couple of books. He told me of the long talks about English literature he and my father had had, discussing especially the writing of John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle. He said, glowing with pride, that I had achieved every ambition he and my father had had back in San Francisco before I was born.

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Father must have been twenty-one when he went to Japan to fetch his bride, bringing her back on a ship bound for San Francisco, but scheduled to stop en route in Vancouver. During the stopover, Father found a business opportunity, so the young couple decided to stay there. I was born not long thereafter, destined not to see San Francisco until more than forty years later.

Thus it was that I was brought up in Canada, being moved from city to city as my father went from one enterprise to another. But there were always books in English at home: Edgar Allan Poe, Alexander Dumas, Charles Dickens, O. Henry, as well as popular books of the day.

My mother was the daughter of a physician of the generation that introduced Western medicine into Japan, whose study was full of German medical textbooks. She understood the bookish habit of mine and encouraged my reading and my studies.

I finished high school in Winnipeg, and it was natural that when enrolled in the University of Manitoba I should major in English while continuing my high school study of French and Latin. Then, while I was in my junior year, my father decided that he had to move the headquarters of his import/export business to Osaka. This meant that my mother and two younger sisters also had to move to Japan, leaving my brother, two years my junior, and me to fend for ourselves. My brother went to Montreal, to go into father's branch office and to live with our uncle.

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My best friends at the university were Gerard and Carlyle, sons of William Talbot Allison, professor of English at the University of Manitoba. When my family left for Japan, the Allisons invited me to stay with them, much to my delight.

I was very happy at the Allison home with my two friends, the wonderfully kind Mrs. Allison and Mary Jo as my new little sister. Furthermore, I learned much that I wanted to learn, living in the home of a professor, a literary scholar and critic.

At the time, Professor Allison was writing book reviews which were syndicated in Canadian newspapers.

After a while Professor Allison invited me to try my hand at reviewing. Soon a few of my reviews, with some editing by the professor, began to be sent out for publication by his syndicate over my by-line! What excitement for a nineteen-year-old! It was then that I strengthened my resolve to become a professor and writer. And that, after several more years, is what I became.

After teaching several years at Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, I was invited to teach in the summer session of 1952 at San Francisco State College. It was a thoroughly gratifying experience. The English department must have been pleased with me, because I was invited to return the following year as a regular faculty member. Remembering the long history of anti-Oriental politics in California -- The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Japanese Exclusion Act of 1924, and

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the long history of anti-Oriental discrimination -- I said, "Nothing doing!"

However, Professor Caroline Shrodes, then head of the English Department, said, "Perhaps you'd like to try us out. Why don't you come again next summer, bringing the whole family, to see how you like it?"

We all came the following summer -- Marge and I and the three children. Then still another summer. After that, our move to California was a foregone conclusion. I became a member of the regular faculty of San Francisco State in 1955.

That year we bought a house in Mill Valley, where we still live. And Marge, having escaped Chicago's asphalt jungle which had been our home, plunged into action to beautify the hillside garden which surrounded our house -- and became a horticulturist. We have never regretted our move.

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The student revolution, begun in Berkeley in 1964, hit San Francisco State in 1966. By 1968 the college was in such uncontrollable turmoil that in May the president fled to what he hoped was a quieter job -- in Ethiopa. A successor was chosen -- a brave man, who expended his courage in defying the trustees rather then the radical students. He was fired in November.

I was appointed as Acting President during Thanksgiving week, the third president in 1968, much to my surprise and everyone else's.

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Thanks to guidance from the office of Dr. Glenn Dumke, Chancellor of the State College system, the experience and wisdom of Thomas Cahill, then Chief of Police of San Francisco, the courage and restraint of the police officers of San Francisco and a dozen other neighboring cities, and thanks too to the professors and students who bravely carried on their academic duties in the midst of the turmoil, order was restored to the campus in the early months of 1969 -- and I was suddenly a hero, "the tough little guy who faced down the radicals and hoodlums at State."

I left the college presidency in 1973, having reached retirement age. In 1976 I ran on the Republican ticket for the U. S. Senate and won. Of course I was overjoyed. Many throughout the state and nation were surprised. In a tactical sense, however, I was not entirely surprised. Things had gone as my able campaign managers and I had planned.

In a deeper sense, however, I was surprised -- and remain so. Despite the almost hundred years of anti-Oriental fervor that has marked the history of California, despite the heightened distrust of the Japanese after Pearl Harbor that resulted in their removal from the West Coast to desert camps for the duration of the war, despite the agonies of the Pacific War that had left thousands upon thousands of California families bereft of sons, brothers and husbands, it seemed that by 1976 anti-Japanese hostility had all but disappeared.

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Despite a vigorous re-election campaign waged against me by Senator John Tunney, not one racist apithet was used against me -- certainly not by the Senator and not, to my knowledge, by any of his supporters.

In sum, I have every reason to be proud and happy to be a Californian. The only thing that bothers me now is when people I meet for the first time ask, "Aren't you the Senator from Hawaii?"

The foregoing, then, is the story of one immigrant. Far more remarkable stories have been told of other immigrants who have come to these shores to find self-realization in agriculture and trade; in science and technology; in music and the arts; in business and finance; in politics and diplomacy; in research and scholarship; in public service and philanthropy. Each of them, I am sure, has a moving and inspiring story to tell.

Having served in the Congress of the United States, I continue to be impressed by the fact that so many of my colleagues in the House and Senate have the same kind of story. Let me cite the names of members of Congress with whom I had the honor to serve: Abourezk, Addabbo, Biaggi, Boschwitz, Cohen, de la Garza, Domenici, Fuqua, Gonzales, Hammerschmidt, Javits, Laxalt, Matsunaga, Oberstar, Rostenkowski, Solarz, Tsongas, Vander Jagt, Zablocki, Zorinsky.

When I reel off this list of names in the course of a luncheon speech, people laugh as if to say, "That's us,

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all right!"

What is it that has made a society out of the hodge-podge of nationalities, races and colors represented in the immigrant hordes that people our nation? It is language, of course, that has made communication among all these elements possible. It is with a common language that we have dissolved distrust and fear. It is with language that we have drawn up the understandings and agreements and social contracts that make a society possible.

But while language is a necessary cause of our oneness as a society, it is not a sufficient cause. A foreigner cannot, by speaking faultless English, become an Englishman. Paul Theroux, a contemporary novelist and travel writer, has commented on this fact: "Foreigners are always aliens in England. No one becomes English. It's a very tribal society . . . No one becomes Japanese . . . . No one becomes Nigerian. But Nigerians, Japanese and English become Americans."

Interview by James T. Yenchel in the Washington Post, December 30, 1984.

One need not speak faultless American English to become an American. Indeed, one may continue to speak English with an appalling foreign accent, as is true of some of my friends, but they are seen as fully American because of the warmth and enthusiasm with which they enter into the life of the communities in which they live.

For most of our history, therefore, Americans have found the "melting pot" an appropriate metaphor for our national experience. Emma Lazarus's poem inscribed on

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the Statue of Liberty continues to express the American ideal of a nation that remains the "last best hope on earth."

When President Reagan, in the course of his Inaugural Address in January of this year, introduced in the balcony of the House chamber a Vietnamese girl, who a few short years ago had arrived in America as a war refugee and was now graduating with honors from West Point, the huge audience greeted her with a roar of applause.

In the past several years strong resistance to the "melting pot" idea has arisen, especially from those who claim to speak for the Hispanic peoples. Instead of a "melting pot," they say, the national ideal should be a "salad bowl," in which different elements are thrown together but not "melted," so that the original ingredients retain their distinctive character.

In addition to the increasing size of the Spanish-speaking population in our nation -- Mexicans, Puerto Ricans

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and Cubans -- two legislative actions have released this outburst of effort on behalf of the Spanish language -- and Hispanic culture.

There was the so-called "bilingual ballot" mandated in 1975 in an amendment to the Voting Rights Act, which required foreign-language ballots when voters of any foreign-language group reached five percent or more of any voting district. (How they become citizens without passing the English-language test required by naturalization law remains obscure.)

Voters in San Francisco encountered ballots in Spanish and Chinese for the first time in the elections of 1980, much to their surprise, since authorizing legislation had been passed by Congress with almost no debate, no roll-call vote, and no public awareness. Naturalized Americans, who had taken the trouble to learn English to become citizens, were especially angry.

Also there was the Lau decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, in response to a suit brought by the Chinese of San Francisco who complained that their children were not being taught English adequately in the public schools they were attending.

Justice William O. Douglas, delivering the opinion of the Court (Lau et al. v. Nichols et al, January 21, 1974), wrote:

"This class suit brought by non-English-speaking

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― 448 ―

Chinese students against . . . the San Francisco Unified School District seeks relief against the unequal educational opportunities which are alleged to violate, inter alia, the Fourteenth Amendment. No specific remedy is urged upon us. Teaching English to the students of Chinese ancestry who do not speak the language is one choice. Giving instructions to this group in Chinese is another. There may be others. Petitioners ask only that the Board of Education be directed to apply its expertise to the problem and rectify the situation."

Justice Douglas's decision, concurred in by the entire Court, granted the Lau petition.

Because the Lau decision did not specify the method by which English was to be taught, it turned out to be a go-ahead for amazing educational developments, not so much for the Chinese as for Hispanics, who appropriated the decision and took it to apply especially to themselves.

The new Department of Education, established during the Carter administration, was eager to make its presence known by expanding its bureaucracy and its influence. The Department quickly announced a vast program with federal funding for bilingual education, which led to the hiring of Spanish-speaking teachers by the hundreds -- eventually thousands.

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The Department furthermore issued what were known as the "Lau regulations," which required under threat of withdrawal of federal funds that (1) non-English-speaking pupils be taught English, and that (2) academic subjects be taught in the pupils' own language. The contradiction between these two regulations seems not to have occurred to the educational theorists in the Department of Education. Nor does it seem to trouble to this day the huge membership of the National Association for Bilingual Education.

"Bilingual education," having rapidly become a growth industry, required more and more teachers. Complaints began to arise from citizens that "bilingual education" was not bilingual at all, since many Spanish-speaking teachers hired for the program were found not te be able to speak English! But the Department of Education decreed that teachers in the "bilingual" program do not need to know English.

Despite the ministrations of the Department of Education, or perhaps because of them, Hispanic students to a shocking degree, drop out of school, educated neither in Hispanic nor in American language and culture. The following are figures on the educational record of Hispanic students, as reported by the "High School and Beyond" study of the National Council for Education Statistics. I quote from the study as reported in The Washington Times, December 12, 1984:

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"40% of Hispanics who leave school do so before reaching tenth grade.

"Few who drop out ever return.

"45% of Mexican-American and Puerto Rican students who enter school never finish.

"76% of Hispanics scored in the bottom half of the national results of standardized achievement tests. . . ."

I welcome the Hispanic -- and as a Californian, I welcome especially the Mexican -- influence on our culture. My wife was wise enough to insist that both our son and daughter learn Spanish as children and to keep reading Spanish as they were growing up. Consequently, my son, a newspaper man, was able to work for six months as an exchange writer for a newspaper in Costa Rica, while a Costa Rican reporter took my son's place in Oregon. My daughter, a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz, speaks Spanish, French, and after a year in Monterey Language School, Japanese.

The ethnic chauvinism of the present Hispanic leadership is an unhealthy trend in present-day America. It threatens a division perhaps more ominous in the long run than the division between blacks and whites. Blacks and whites have problems enough with each other, to be sure, but they quarrel

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with each other in one language. Even Malcolm X, in his fiery denunciations of the racial situation in America, wrote faultless and eloquent English.

But the present politically ambitious "Hispanic Caucus" looks forward to a destiny for Spanish-speaking Americans separate from that of Anglo-, Italian-, Polish-, Greek-, Lebanese-, Chinese-, Afro-Americans and all the rest of us who rejoice in our ethnic diversity, which give us our richness as a culture, and the English language, which keeps us in communication with each other to create a unique and vibrant culture.

The advocates of Spanish language and Hispanic culture are not at all unhappy about the fact that "bilingual education," originally instituted as the best way to teach English, often results in no English being taught at all. Nor does Hispanic leadership seem to be alarmed that large populations of Mexican-Americans, Cubans and Puerto Ricans do not speak English and have no intention of learning.

Hispanic spokesmen rejoice when still another concession is made to the Spanish-speaking public, such as the Spanish-language "Yellow Pages" telephone directory now available in Los Angeles.

"Let's face it. We are not going to be a totally English-speaking country any more," says Aurora Helton of the Governor of Oklahoma's Hispanic Advisory Committee.

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"Spanish should be included in commercials shown throughout America. Every American child ought to be taught both English and Spanish," says Mario Obledo, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), which was founded more than a half-century ago to help Hispanics learn English and enter the American mainstream.

"Citizenship is what makes us all American. Language is not necessary to the system. Nowhere does the Constitution say that English is our language," say Maurice Ferre, Mayor of Miami, Florida.

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"Nowhere does the Constitution say that English is our language," says Mayor Ferre.

It was to correct this omission that I introduced in April 1981 a constitutional amendment which read as follows:

"Article --

"Section 1. The English language shall be the official language of the United States.

"Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

The quarterly record of legislative activiites for the period describes the proposed legislation as follows:

"Senator Hayakawa introduced S.J. Res. 72 . . . . . The emphasis of SIH's floor statement was that a common language can unify, deparate languages can fracture and fragment a society. Senator Hayakawa believes that this amendment is needed to clarify the confusing signals we have given in recent years to immigrant groups. The requirements to become a naturalized citizen say you must be able to speak, read and write words in the English language. And though you must be a citizen to vote, some recent legislation has required bilingual ballots in some areas. This amendment would end that contradictory and logically conflicting situation."

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Although there were ten cosponsors to this resolution, and some speeches were given on the Senate floor, it died without being acted upon in the 97th Congress.

In the 98th Congress, in September 1983, the English Language Amendment was re-submitted (S.J. Res.167) by Senator Walter Huddleston (Dem.,Ky.). In his introductory speech he said:

"As a nation of immigrants, our great strength has been drawn from our ability to assimilate. . . . people from many different cultures. . . . But for the last fifteen years, we have experienced a growing resistance to the acceptance of our historic language, an antagonistic questioning of the melting pot philosophy. . . ."

Senator Huddleston goes on to quote Theodore H. White's book, America in Search of Itself:

"Some Hispanics have. . . . made a demand never voiced before: that the United States, in effect, officially recognize itself as a bicultural, bilingual nation. . . . (They) demand that the United States become a bilingual country, with all children entitled to be taught in the language of their heritage, at public expense."

On June 12, 1984, the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, with Senator Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) presiding, held a hearing on Senator Huddleston's amendment, at which several witnesses presented their views. I was among those witnesses.

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However, no further action was taken by the 98th Congress.

In January of this year, the English Language Amendment was introduced again, this time by Senator Steve Symms (R.,Idaho), in his introductory remarks, stated two points not previously made explicit, although certainly implied; first, that the amendment is not intended to regulate language usage between private parties, and secondly that it is not intended to discourage tha use of foreign languages in diplomacy or trade. As he said at the time:

"The English language amendment is intended to stop the practice of voting in foreign languages; it is intended to teach children who don't know English through appropriate programs. . . . ; it is intended to make English the only language for official proceedings of governments at all levels. . . . ; it is intended to make the acceptance of English a condition of statehood incumbent upon all territories aspiring to that status."

In the House of Representatives the English Language Amendment was offered by Robert K. Dornan (R., Los Angeles) in the 97th Congress, and by Norman Shumway (R.,Stockton, Ca) in both the 98th Congress and the present 99th. Congressman Shumway early this month had 21 co-sponsors.

So much for the action in Congress. In the following states, English has been declared by law to be the state's official language: Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Nebraska and Virginia.

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The people of the State of Florida are at present circulating petitions to put on the ballot in the 1986 election a clause in the state constitution that will declare English to be the official language of Florida.

As for actions pending as of March: the following states have measures before their legislatures to make English their official language: California, Texas, Maryland, Washington and Ohio. Similarly legislation is being actively considered in Arizona, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada and New York.

The movement to make English the official language of the United States is clearly gathering momentum. I shall not go so far as to say it sweeping the country. But I have little doubt that the movement will be doubled in strength by this time next year.

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For the first time in our history, our nation is faced with the possibility of the kind of linguistic division that has torn apart Canada in recent years; that has been a major feature of the unhappy history of Belgium, split into speakers of French and Flemish; that is at this very moment a bloody division between the Sinhalese and Tamil populations of Sri Lanka.

None of these divisions is simply a quarrel about language. But in each case political differences become hardened and made immeasurably more difficult to resolve when they are accompanied by differences of language -- and therefore conflicts of ethnic pride.

The aggressive movement on the part of Hispanics to reject assimilation and to seek to maintain -- and give official status to -- a foreign language within our borders is an unhealthy development. This foreign language and culture are to be maintained not through private endeavors such as those of the Alliance Francaise, which tries to preserve French language and culture, but by federal and state legislation and funding.

The energetic lobbying of the National Association for Bilingual Education and the congressional Hispanic Caucus has led to sizeable allocations for bilingual education in the Department of Education; $142 million in fiscal 1985, of which the lion's share goes to Hispanic programs. The purpose of this allocation at the federal level is to prepare administrators and teachers for bilingual education at the

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state level -- which means additional large sums of money allocated for this purpose by state governments.

In brief, the basic directive of the Lau decision of the Supreme Court has been, for all intents and purposes, diverted from its original purpose of teaching English.

In the light of the foregoing, I would like to suggest a national program to make instruction in the English language more available to all who need it.

My suggestion is to create a well-endowed National English Language Foundation to help our non-English-speaking population become more proficient in our common language.

I repeat: What is at stake in the long run is our unity as a nation. The dangers come not from outside forces, but from the rulings of our own government. Would it not be appropriate, then, for the private sector to step in to untangle the mess that government has created?

A foundation such as I envision can strengthen adult-education programs for English language instruction now available in high schools and community colleges throughout the nation. It can devise improved programs for language instruction by television or radio -- and broadcast them. It can open English-language centers in communities where none exist, offering day and evening classes to all who wish them. Unfettered by the conventional requirements of credentials and diplomas, such a Foundation can use novel methods, find teaching talent in unlikely people, and explore new approaches to the great problems involved.

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The Foundation would be open to non-English-speaking American citizens as well as to non-English-speaking aliens who hope to become citizens. A modest tuition fee should be charged, and the pupil given a diploma on passing the final English-language competency test. At that time, the tuition fee might well be refunded.

I call on thoughtful citizens of both political parties, on service clubs such as Kiwanis and Rotary and Lions, and Soroptimists, on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the League of Women Voters, and all other organizations that have our national well-being at heart, to unite to form a National English Language Foundation as a step towards getting the education of our non-English-speaking children and adults on the right track.

As I draw these remarks to a close, let me submit a few short quotations in support of my argument. First in reply to those who say that our campaign for English language is isolationist, even racist, let me quote from Emma Lazarur's famous poem inscribed on the Statue of Liberty:

"A mighty woman with a torch, whose fame Is the imprisoned lightning and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beaconhand Glows world-wide welcomes . . . . Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Secondly, in reply to those who say that there is nothing wrong with having two languages nationally, I quote some remarks

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made by one who is a fellow-Canadian, and who has had a successful career in the United States, Fred L. Hartley, president of the Union Oil Company of California:

"My native Canada is a land of two official languages, a circumstance that has proved more and more disastrous to Canada's progress and unity. At this moment (November 21, 1983) there is not a single member of the party in power in the federal capital at Ottawa who represents the provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

"Let us learn from this example and formally establish and maintain one official English language so that all can fully participate and communicate in our society with one tongue."

One official language and one only, so that we can unite as a nation. This is what President Theodore Roosevelt also perceived when he said:

"We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans . . . . No more hyphenated Americans."

Let me quote in conclusion a remark from the distinguished American novelist, Saul Bellow, when he agreed to serve on the advisory board of our national organization, U.S. English:

"Melting pot, yes. Tower of Babel, no!"

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English should be official U.S. language

By S.I. Hayakawa

Paul B. Rosenblatt, a U.S. District Court judge in Phoenix, Ariz., has thrown out an amendment to the state constitution that established English as the official language of Arizona. Unconscionably, Gov. Rose Mofford, an outspoken foe of the amendment, refuses to appeal his decision. In taking this position, she is frustrating the will of Arizona voters, who adopted the amendment in 1988.

In addition, the decision is creating a chilling effect in other states where official-English laws are being considered or implemented.

The ruling came on a lawsuit by Maria-Kelly F. Yniguez, a Department of Administration nurse, who evaluated medical malpractice claims against the state. She named Governor Mofford as defendant.

Yniguez feared that the amendment inhibited her freedom of speech and could threaten her job if she used Spanish while talking with co-workers and with claimants. Judge Rosenblatt agreed that she was right.

If our society's strength rests on its diversity, its unity is derived and preserved by our common language — English.

Contrary to her fears — and his ruling — such speech was not legally inhibited by the amendment (which was written with the help of lawyers for U.S. English, an organization established in 1983).

HAVING English as Arizona's official language would not stop anyone from speaking to co-workers in government in any language they chose so long as they were not performing an official action. But if they were performing an official action while dealing with them and the public, they would have to speak in English.

Official actions are those a government will enforce with its full weight and authority. For example, Yniguez might have answered questions about procedure in Spanish, but when denying a medical malpractice claim, the official form documenting that denial that she gave the claimant had to be in English.

Official-English legislation is not meant to impede government. Quite the contrary. By insuring that government acts are conducted in the common language of our land, our society facilitates the operation of government. Individuals who must discuss government business in other languages may do so — but procedures, laws, reports and decisions must be in English.

The Arizona law did not discriminate against anyone. It assured the state's citizens that whenever they went to state and local government offices or to state courts, they could expect an official answer, oral or written, in English. They could reasonably expect that the agency might provide someone who could assist them in, say, Spanish or an Asian language.

SOME CRITICS allege that the amendment was stimulated by anti-Hispanic bias. Nothing could be further from the truth. The issue is not the Spanish vs. English languages, but English vs. chaos — the legally sanctioned use of many languages in official business.

The official-English movement recognizes the rich cultural heritage of our nation and of our language. As a living language, English draws upon other languages of the world for words, phrases and expressions.

How foolish to believe that today the people of any state would enact a law that restricts their speaking their native languages. In no way would having English as Arizona's official language intrude upon anyone's private life, business or day-to-day living. Nationwide, the official-English movement applies only to the conduct of government business.

America consists of a diverse people, with more than 120 ethnic languages, drawn from every corner of the world. The official-English movement acknowledges and applauds ethnic diversity. But if our society's strength rests in its diversity, its unity is derived from and preserved by our common language. To say otherwise is to deny reality.

S.I. Hayakawa, former senator from California, is honorary chairman of U.S. English, which he helped found. This article appeared in The New York Times.

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Appendix C: California English Campaign

99 Osgood Place
San Francisco, CA 94133
(415) 395-9807, (213) 969-4783

September 21, 1994

Meeting Report: Southern California Committee of the California English Campaign - September 3, 1994 - Los Angeles Airport Hilton.

The California English Campaign (CEC) was the sponsor of the Hayakawa-Diamond constitutional amendment initiative, Proposition 63, that established English as the official language of California. The initiative won with a stunning 73%; over 5,000,000 California voters supported the initiative. The goal of the CEC is to mobilize this overwhelming majority of California voters' demanding implementing legislation from the legislature. If the legislature fails to act, the CEC will seek implementation through the courts and statewide initiatives. Priority goals are: 1) Voting ballots at all levels must be in English only. 2) Native language teaching of immigrant children must be limited. Immigrant children must be in English only classes within two years. 3) Diplomas of high school graduates must state that graduates have passed examinations for competency in English. 4) Any legislation, court actions or initiatives that limit English as the official language must be opposed. A reserve fund will be raised specifically to finance that opposition. 5) All languages and cultures must be respected as a source of our country's strength. The responsibility, however, of government or public agencies, is limited to providing services in English only.

The Southern California Committee is a volunteer, non-partisan, activist support group of the California English Campaign. Members of the committee are educators, professionals, political activists, businessmen and women, community leaders, a political candidate, a playwright, a student and staff personnel from the State Assembly.

Committee Actions: Ted Costa, CEO of People's Advocate and Michael

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Abernathy of PAPAC (People's Advocate Political Action Committee) presented the role of the People's Advocate as the sponsoring organization of the California English Campaign. Staff support for the CEC will be furnished by People's Advocate.

Sally Peterson, President of LEAD (Learning English Advocates Drive) will work with Doris Winters of Assemblyman Patrick Knight's office to prepare an English language development bill to be introduced in the 1995 Legislative session. Sponsorship will be sought from both political parties.

Doris Winters of Assemblyman Knight's staff will track legislation that is of interest to CEC, will analyze such legislation, recommend support or opposition and arrange appearances for testimony at committee hearings.

In voucher system symposia now being held throughout California, presentations will be made recommending that all high school diplomas must state that graduates, through examinations, are competent in English. This recommendation will be brought to the attention of the California Round Table and the California Chamber of Commerce. Roger Hughes will coordinate this project.

Excitement entered Roger's life recently with an invitation from President Clinton to attend the Rose Garden Crime Bill signing ceremony on September 13, 1994. Off went Roger on the red-eye to D.C. The invitation was in appreciation for Roger's help in lining up support for the bill from on-the-fence Congressmen, Congresswomen and Senators.

The CEC position that ballots for voting must be in English only continues as a priority for the organization. Another appointment with Attorney General Lungren will be requested. A previous appointment had been canceled. The AG's office, we believe, should file lawsuits against the cities of Los Angeles and San Francisco alleging violation of the Hayakawa- Diamond constitutional amendment, Proposition 63, that established English as the official language of California. If the AG refuses, CEC will file it's own lawsuits against these cities. Statewide initiatives are also under consideration for filing in 1995.

The lawsuit against Spun Steak Company of South San Francisco was a test of the employer's right to require that English only must be spoken

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during working hours on the plant assembly line. CEC had prepared an amicus brief in support of the employer when the Supreme Court denied the plaintiff's motion for a hearing before the court. This means that the employer may require English only in plant operations. This appellate court decision in favor of Spun Steak held that the English only requirement was necessary for safety, security and employee harmony. This decision is a significant victory for Spun Steak, employers and for CEC.

Reserve fund for litigation and statewide initiatives: Ted Costa, Michael Abernathy and Stanley Diamond were appointed to develop a special fund for litigation and statewide initiatives. Litigation may be necessary to mandate that ballots must be in English only. The CEC holds that the Hayakawa-Diamond constitutional amendment, (English is the official language of California), is quite clear; that all official acts and documents of the state must be in English only. The reserve fund would also be drawn upon for statewide initiatives if the legislature refuses to implement the Hayakawa-Diamond amendment or if legislation is passed that is in violation of the amendment. 90% of CEC income is committed to CEC goals. Limit for administration expenses is 10% or less.

Speaker's Bureaus have been established for Northern and Southern California. The Northern California office is represented by Ralph Hylinski, M.D. Telephone (415) 395-9807 and (510) 537-2791. The Southern California office representative is Eric Diamond, telephone (213) 969-4783. Spanish speaking representatives of the CEC are available for presentations, debates, discussions, etc.

This report of the September 3 meeting of the California Campaign Committee will be made available to the public and all media.

Members of the Southern California Committee:

• Michael Abernathy Fred Baughman, M.D. Ted Costa Dinesh Desai Stanley Diamond
• Eric Diamond Fernando de la Pena Lydia Garza Jeanne Griffiths Eugene Gonzales, Ph. D.
• Roger Hughes Ralph Hylinski, M.D. Barbara Kaze Angie Papadakis Sally Peterson
• Katherine Peterson Robert Rossier, Ph. D. Rosa Marie Rossier Gloria Mata Tuchman

California English Campaign

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Index_-S. I. Hayakawa

• abortion, 301-302, 357
• Adler, Larry, 364
• Alioto, Joseph, 220, 241-242
• Alley, Vernon, 225
• Allison, Gerard and Carlyle, 14, 19, 38-39, 42, 157-158
• Allison, Mary Josephine, 14, 19, 38, 42, 157
• Allison, Professor William Talbot, 14, 38-42 157-158
• Arden Club, 49-50, 56-59, 65, 86, 93, 189
• Arden House, 34, 49, 57-59
• art, 148-156
  • African, 146-149, 371-372
  • Oriental, 148-150
  • Wynne's sculpture, 175, 184-185
• Atwater, Lee, 276
• Baker, Howard, 8, 295, 325, 326
• ballot propositions, 251, 272
  • Proposition 38 (CA), 223-224
  • Proposition 63 (CA), 223-224, 276, 336-338, 342
  • Proposition O (SF), 223-224
• Berkeley Unified School District, 254-256
• Bikales, Gerda, 259, 262
• bilingual education, 251-261, 264, 268-273, 320, 332. See also U.S. English.
• Black, Spencer, 281
• Black Students Union, 201-202
• Bloodstein, Oliver, 124, 154
• Book-of-the-Month Club, 87, 89-90, 94, 98
• bracero program, 310-311
• Braley, Ruth Toshiko Hayakawa, 6, 12-14, 19-20, 38, 94
• Buckley, John, 276
• Burns, Robert, 22, 65
• Burton, Philip, 220-221, 279
• Burton, John, 220-221, 279
• Bush, George H. W., 297, 332
• Cahill, Thomas, 241
• Calloway, Cab, 366-367
• campaigns, election, 282-287, 328
• Canadian Machine Gun Corps, 16-17, 23, 28-31, 187
• Carson, Johnny, 317
• Carter, James E., 9, 292, 311-314
• Chase, Stuart, 76, 78-79, 85, 99
• Chavez, Linda, 265-266, 271, 349
• Chicago Defender, 91-92, 112-115, 132, 139-149, 163, 172, 364
• (Chicago) Hyde Park. See Hyde Park.
• (Chicago) Institute of Design. See Institute of Design
• Chicago Sun, 80-81, 97
• childhood in Calgary, Vancouver, and Winnipeg, 3-5, 7-12, 14-17, 19-36
• child raising, 166-181, 185-191, 361-362, 372-376
• Civil War, 52
• Client-Centered Therapy (Rogers), 176-177
• Cohen, Joseph, 198-200
• Columbia University, 109
• Communist party, 86
• cooking, Japanese, 93-94, 162
• co-ops in Wisconsin and Chicago, 70, 104-106, 111-112, 115, 120, 132, 135-138, 144-145, 163, 170, 190, 303-304, 354
• Coughlin, Father Charles E., 83, 109
• Counseling and Psychotherapy (Rogers), 176-177
• Cranston, Alan, 290, 318
• Crawford, Big, 365-366, 377
• cummings, e. e., 86, 89, 118
• Democratic party, 220-221, 279-280, 286-287, 327
• Depression of 1929, 48, 59
• Diamond, Stanley, interview: 222-276; 117, 282, 289, 348, 349, 355
• Dole, Robert, 295, 326

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― 466 ―
• Dornan, Robert, 250
• Dumke, Glenn, 202-204, 211, 240
• education, 9-12, 14-35, 112. See also McGill University, University of Manitoba, University of Wisconsin.
• elections. See ballot propositions; campaigns, election.
• Ellington, Duke, 366-367
• Eliot, T. S., 57-58
• English language amendment. See U.S. English
• ETC., A Review of General Semantics, 117-130, 132-135, 154, 176, 194, 227, 232
• ethnic groups, 3, 10-12, 17-18, 31-35, 60-63, 71-72, 83, 96-97, 109-117, 141-146, 161-162, 178-179, 195-196, 251-261, 266-267, 303-310
• ethnic studies, 201, 218
• FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform), 262-266, 349-351
• Fairchild, David, 89
• fencing, 277-278
• Finch, Robert, 282-285
• Fisher, Dorothy Canfield, 89
• Fiske, Vocha, 100-102
• French Canadians, 31-33, 45-48, 251, 258
• Garrity, Donald L., 205, 218-219
• Gesell, Arnold, 167, 169
• Golden Door Program, 269-270, 272
• Goldwater, Barry, Sr., 221, 330, 358
• Graham, Hugh, 263
• Great Books Program, 84
• Greenaway, Roy, 290
• Griffiths, Jeanne, interview, 336-359; 185, 211-212
• Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 86, 89, 186
• Hayakawa, Alan, 105, 166-167, 169-170, 173, 177, 179, 182-183, 185-187, 190, 215, 347, 361, 363, 372-373, 374
• Hayakawa, Fred Jun, 5-6, 12, 14-15, 38-39, 46, 64
• Hayakawa, Grace Emiko, 6, 12-14, 19-20, 38, 94, 376
• Hayakawa, Harold Saburo, 38-39, 42, 64
• Hayakawa, Ichiro, 1-5, 7-10, 14, 24-25, 38-39, 64, 182-183
• Hayakawa, Margedant Peters, interview 51-65; 50-73, 82, 88, 91-94, 96, 98-107, 111, 113-115, 120-122, 127-128, 131-138, 156, 160-186, 188-191, 194, 197, 201, 203-205, 207-208, 212-219, 221-222, 240, 248, 288, 289, 303, 324, 351, 353-354, 360-361, 366, 368-369, 370, 374-376
• Hayakawa, Mark, 94, 156, 166-170, 172-173, 177-185, 191, 324, 347, 348, 360-362, 370, 372, 376
• Hayakawa, Tora Isono, 3-5, 7-10, 12, 14, 19, 24, 38, 64, 94, 182-183
• Hayakawa, Wynne, 156, 166, 173, 175, 177-179, 182-185, 214-215, 347, 361, 374-376
• Hayakawa family history, 1-8
• Hayden, Tom, 286
• Hayes, Clancy, 225-226
• Helms, Jesse, 330, 332
• Hill, Frank, 289
• Hitler, Adolf, 83, 109, 146
• Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 58, 69
• Huddleston, Walter, 250
• Hughes, Langston, 139-141, 145, 363-364
• Humphrey, Hubert, 358
• Hutchins, Robert, 84
• Hyde Park, 104-107, 110, 160-161, 362-363
• Illinois Institute of Technology, 88-89, 91, 94-100, 105, 110-111, 134, 136, 143, 152, 154, 161, 164, 192, 196-197

---

― 467 ―
• Imhoff, Gary, 259
• Indiana, 51, 53-56
• Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 108-109
• Institute of Design, 151-156
• Institute of General Semantics, 79-80, 121-122, 129-130, 134
• International Society for General Semantics, 117-125, 129, 227, 230
• interracial marriage, 60-63, 71-72, 166, 181-182, 353-354
• Isono, —, 3, 5-6
• Jackson, Mahalia, 207-208, 367, 370
• Japan, 1-3, 5-6, 13, 182-183, 375-376
• Japanese relocation, 161-162, 193, 303-310
• Johnson, Wendell, 80, 188, 122-124, 130, 197, 226, 235
• Kelley, Douglas, 226-228, 235
• Kendig, M., 129-130
• Kennedy, Ted, 284, 329, 358
• King, Martin Luther, Jr., 203, 367
• Knott, Thomas, 73-74, 148
• Korzybski, Count Alfred, 76-83, 88-89, 101, 107, 118-112, 124, 126-134, 192-193, 227, 230-231, 234-235
• Langdon Hall, 56-57
• language (and ethnic groups), 1-3, 7-8, 13-14, 19-20, 31-35, 41, 45-48, 83, 118, 251. See also U.S. English.
• Language in Thought and Action, 72-73, 83-90, 94, 98-102, 122, 172, 191, 200, 229, 342, 354, 374
• LEAD (Learning English Advocates Drive), 259-260
• Lee, Irving, 80, 118-119, 122-123, 130
• Levin, Carl, 326
• Lewis, Sinclair, 69
• Lexicography, 73-74, 81, 125
• linguistics, 77, 148
• Lochard, Metz, 113-114, 139
• Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 22, 37
• Lopez Portillo, Jose, 310
• LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens), 321
• March, Frederick, 364, 377
• McGill University, 41-47, 50
• McNealy, Raymond, 118-119
• Mead, Margaret, 124, 132
• Meaning of Meaning, The (Ogden & Richards), 76
• Memphis Slim, 366-367
• Menninger, Karl, 80-81, 91
• mental retardation, 163, 167-170, 180-181
• Middle English dictionary, 73-75, 148
• Moholy-Nagy, Lazlo, 151-157
• Moynihan, Daniel Patrick, 330
• Murphy, Turk, 225-226
• music, 20-21, 91, 112, 157-158, 163-165, 225-226, 365-367
• Nazism, 145-146
• newspaper columns, 40-41, 43, 81, 168, 172
• newspapers, 51, 54-55, 97, 108, 185-186
• nicknames, 6, 19, 34, 50
• Nixon, Richard, 373
• Nunn, Sam, 330
• "On Communication with Children", 174
• Orly, Elvira, interview, 227-335; 277-304, 306-331, 333, 334
• Our Language and Our World, 201
• Panama Canal, 311-315
• Pearl Harbor, 89-91, 96-97, 143
• People in Quandaries: The Semantics of Personal Adjustment (Johnson), 122, 130
• Peters, Clara Margedant, 51-55, 166, 168-169, 174-175, 178, 181-182, 221

---

― 468 ―
• Peters, Frederick Romer, 51-55, 166, 169, 178, 181, 221
• Peters, William Wesley, 51, 53, 55, 159
• Peters family history, 51-53
• phatic communication, 231-232
• Poe, Edgar Allan, 1
• Phoenix (San Francisco State University newspaper), 2-3
• poetry, 37, 40-41, 43-44, 57-60, 74-75
• Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, 92, 102-104, 132, 163-164, 170, 190-191
• Pope, Julie, 369
• Pratt, Eugene, 280, 282, 289, 290, 317, 334
• press relations, 327-329, 333-335
• Pressler, Larry, 326, 330
• public relations, 219-220
• public support, 210-214, 239, 242, 244-245
• Quayle, Dan, 358
• race relations, 110-115, 141-145
• racial prejudice, 115-116, 146, 178-179
• Rapoport, Anatol, 119-124, 127-128, 130, 226, 228, 235
• Reagan, Ronald, 203-204, 217, 219, 239-240, 318, 320, 357, 358
• religious background, 18-19
• Republican party, 220-221, 273, 275, 278-280, 281-285, 294-295, 302, 323, 325, 327, 357-359, 377
• Revolutionary War, 53
• Rocking Horse, The, 49-50, 59-60
• Rogers, Carl, 100, 131-132, 174, 176, 190, 198
• Roosevelt, Franklin D., 221
• Roseborough, Daisy, interview, 360-378; 94, 168, 170-171, 180, 184, 191, 347
• saccharine, 296-297, 331
• San Francisco State College, 2-3, 100, 170, 192-222, 235-249, 296 presidency of, 203-222, 237-249, 267, 273-274, 282-283, 285, 338-339, 357, 367-368
• Schafly, Phyllis, 326-327
• Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelian Systems and General Semantics (Korzybski), 77-79, 81-82, 133
• SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), 201
• Scobie, Bob, 226
• semantics, 76-92, 99-102, 107-109, 117-134, 142-143, 174, 176, 192-195, 197-201, 226-237, 246, 341-342
• semantique, la, 76-77
• Shakespeare, 21, 49, 65
• Shin Sekai ( New World) (newspaper), 7
• Shrodes, Caroline, 193-195
• Shumway, Norman, 271
• Smith, Robert R., 203, 205-206, 211, 238, 247, 282
• Smith, Glenn, 205
• Sorensen, Leo, 262
• Stevens, Ted, 326, 327, 330
• Stevenson, Adlai, 279, 358
• Stewart, George, 89-90
• Storm, 89-90
• student protests, San Francisco State College, 200-210, 213, 216-217, 237-249, 278-280, 283, 285
• Summerskill, John, 202-203, 238, 246-247, 282
• Symms, Steve, 250
• Syracuse University, 85, 87
• Taliesin, 53
• Tanton, John, 262-265, 348-350
• teaching, general, 47, 68-69
  • approach, 197-200, 229-231, 237
  • at Illinois Institute of Technology, 88-89, 91, 94-100, 143, 161, 192, 196-197
  • at University of Wisconsin Extension, 66-73, 83-87
• Torres, Art, 259
• Tower, John, 327
• Transformation, 150-151, 153-154
• Trilling, Charles, 231

---

― 469 ―
• Tuchman, Gloria Matta, 262-263
• Tunney, John, 274, 283-287, 320
• Tyranny of Words, The. See Stuart Chase.
• U.S. English, 222-224, 249-252, 256, 258-260, 262-273, 275, 306, 319-321, 337, 338, 340, 342, 348-352, 354, 355, 359
• United States Senate, 8-9, 182, 220-222, 249-251, 267-268, 270, 272-275, 277-335
  • committees, 292-294
    • Agriculture Committee 292, 295
    • Budget Committee 292
    • Foreign Affairs Committee 295-296
    • Health and Human Services Committee 292, 295
    • Steering Committee, 326-327
  • University of Chicago, 84, 95, 105, 110-111, 121, 143, 160-162, 176, 192-193, 196-197
  • University of Denver, 106-108, 160
  • University of Manitoba, 14, 24, 35-42, 112, 303
  • University of Michigan, 73-74, 80, 109, 148-150
  • University of Wisconsin,
    • Ph.D., 34-35, 47-51, 53, 55-67, 83-88, 109, 156, 189
    • Extension, 66-73, 83-84, 87, 95, 197
  • wage, minimum, 297-300, 332
  • Walker, Mary, 170-171
  • Wanderer, Bob, 230-231
  • White, Walter, 140, 145
  • Wilson, Elizabeth, 238
  • Wolfe, Tom, 326
  • Woodward and McDowell, 281, 284
  • World War 11, 90-92, 96-97, 114, 143, 151-152, 161-162, 193, 227-228, 262, 303-310
  • Wright, Frank Lloyd, 53, 158-159
  • Wright, Marcia, 290
  • Yancy, Jimmy and Estelle, 164-165, 365-366
  • Yorke, Harvey, 205

Julie Gordon Shearer

Stanford University, B.A., political science, 1963.

Reporter and Feature Editor, MILL VALLEY RECORD (CA), 1963.

Consultant, University of California School of Criminology evaluating North Richmond Newspaper Community Action Project. 1964.

Editor and Feature Writer, University of California, Berkeley, for Agricultural Extension (three years) and Center for Research and Development in Higher Education (nine years).

Interviewer-Editor for the Regional Oral History Office focusing on social and political history, since 1978.

Board Member, Rhythmic Concepts, Inc., nonprofit jazz education organization since 1984. Faculty member, Jazz Camp 1987 and 1988.

Founding member of Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir, performing since 1986.