so much as I had feared. We sublet our nice farmhouse, and went to live in a
cottage intended for a coloured couple whom it was expected that the
inhabitants of the farmhouse would employ. This consisted of three rooms
and three stoves, each of which had to be stoked every hour or so. One was to
warm the place, one was for cooking, and one was for hot water. When they
went out it was several hours’ work to get them lighted again. Conrad could
hear every word that Peter and I said to each other, and we had many worrying
things to discuss which it was not good for him to be troubled with. But by
this time the trouble about City College had begun to blow over, and I was
able to get occasional lecture engagements in New York and other places. The
embargo was ?rst broken by an invitation from Professor Weiss of Bryn Mawr
to give a course of lectures there. This required no small degree of courage.
On one occasion I was so poor that I had to take a single ticket to New York
and pay the return fare out of my lecture fee. My History of Western Philosophy was
nearly complete, and I wrote to W. W. Norton, who had been my American
publisher, to ask if, in view of my di?cult ?nancial position, he would make
an advance on it. He replied that because of his a?ection for John and Kate,
and as a kindness to an old friend, he would advance ?ve hundred dollars. I
thought I could get more elsewhere, so I approached Simon and Schuster,
who were unknown to me personally. They at once agreed to pay me two
thousand dollars on the spot, and another thousand six months later. At this
time John was at Harvard and Kate was at Radcli?e. I had been afraid that
lack of funds might compel me to take them away, but thanks to Simon and
Schuster, this proved unnecessary. I was also helped at this time by loans
from private friends which, fortunately, I was able to repay before long.
The History of Western Philosophy began by accident and proved the main
source of my income for many years. I had no idea, when I embarked upon
america. 1938–1944 443this project, that it would have a success which none of my other books have
had, even, for a time, shining high upon the American list of Best Sellers.
While I was still concerned with ancient times, Barnes had told me that he
had no further need of me, and my lectures stopped. I found the work
exceedingly interesting, especially the parts that I knew least about before-
hand, the early Medieval part and the Jewish part just before the birth of
Christ, so I continued the work till I had completed the survey. I was grateful
to Bryn Mawr College for allowing me the use of its library which I found
excellent, especially as it provided me with the invaluable work of the Rev.
Charles who published translations of Jewish works written shortly before
the time of Christ and in a great degree anticipating His teaching.
I was pleased to be writing this history because I had always believed that
history should be written in the large. I had always held, for example, that the
subject matter of which Gibbon treats could not be adequately treated in a
shorter book or several books. I regarded the early part of my History of Western
Philosophy as a history of culture, but in the later parts, where science becomes
important, it is more di?cult to ?t into this framework. I did my best, but I
am not at all sure that I succeeded. I was sometimes accused by reviewers of
writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily
chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write
interesting history – if, indeed, such a man exists. I regard it as mere humbug
to pretend to lack of bias. Moreoever, a book, like any other work, should be
held together by its point of view. This is why a book made up of essays by
various authors is apt to be less interesting as an entity than a book by one
man. Since I do not admit that a person without bias exists, I think the best
that can be done with a large-scale history is to admit one’s bias and for
dissatis?ed readers to look for other writers to express an opposite bias.
Which bias is nearer to the truth must be left to posterity. This point of
view on the writing of history makes me prefer my History of Western Philosophy
to the Wisdom of the West which was taken from the former, but ironed out
and tamed – although I like the illustrations of Wisdom of the West.
The last part of our time in America was spent at Princeton, where we had
a little house on the shores of the lake. While in Princeton, I came to know
Einstein fairly well. I used to go to his house once a week to discuss with him
and G?del and Pauli. These discussions were in some ways disappointing,
for, although all three of them were Jews and exiles and, in intention, cosmo-
politans, I found that they all had a German bias towards metaphysics, and
in spite of our utmost endeavours we never arrived at common premises
from which to argue. G?del turned out to be an unadulterated Platonist,
and apparently believed that an eternal ‘not’ was laid up in heaven, where
virtuous logicians might hope to meet it hereafter.
The society of Princeton was extremely pleasant, pleasanter, on the whole,
the autobiography of bertrand russell 444than any other social group I had come across in America. By this time John
was back in England, having gone into the British Navy and been set to learn
Japanese. Kate was self-su?cient at Radcli?e, having done extremely well in
her work and acquired a small teaching job. There was therefore nothing to
keep us in America except the di?culty of obtaining a passage to England. This
di?culty, however, seemed for a long time insuperable. I went to Washington
to argue that I must be allowed to perform my duties in the House of Lords,
and tried to persuade the authorities that my desire to do so was very ardent.
At last I discovered an argument which convinced the British Embassy. I said
to them: ‘You will admit this is a war against Fascism.’ ‘Ye s’, they said; ‘And’,
I continued, ‘you will admit that the essence of Fascism consists in the
subordination of the legislature to the executive’. ‘Yes,’ they said, though
with slightly more hesitation. ‘Now,’ I continued, ‘you are the executive and
I am the legislature and if you keep me away from my legislative functions
one day longer than is necessary, you are Fascists.’ Amid general laughter, my
sailing permit was granted then and there. A curious di?culty, however, still
remained. My wife and I got A priority, but our son Conrad only got a B, as
he had as yet no legislative function. Naturally enough we wished Conrad,
who was seven years old, and his mother to travel together, but this required
that she should consent to be classi?ed as a B. No case had so far occurred of a
person accepting a lower classi?cation than that to which they were entitled,
and all the o?cials were so puzzled that it took them some months to
understand. At last, however, dates were ?xed, for Peter and Conrad ?rst, and
for me about a fortnight later. We sailed in May 1944.
LETTERS
To Charles Sanger’s wife ‘The Plaisance’
On the Midway at Jackson
Park – Chicago
Nov. 5, 1938
My dear Dora
Thank you for your letter, which, after some wanderings, reached me here.
I quite agree with you about the new war-cry. I was immensely glad when
the crisis passed, but I don’t know how soon it may come up again. Here in
America, nine people out of ten think that we ought to have fought but
America ought to have remained neutral – an opinion which annoys me. It is
odd, in England, that the very people who, in 1919, protested against the
unjust frontiers of Czechoslovakia were the most anxious, in 1938, to defend
them. And they always forget that the ?rst result of an attempt at an armed
defence would have been to expose the Czechs to German invasion, which
would have been much worse for them than even what they are enduring now.
america. 1938–1944 445I had forgotten about Eddie Marsh at the Ship in 1914, but your letter
reminded me of it. Everybody at that time reacted so characteristically.
Ottoline’s death was a very great loss to me. Charlie and Crompton and
Ottoline were my only really close friends among contemporaries, and now all
three are dead. And day by day we move into an increasingly horrible world.
Privately, nevertheless, my circumstances are happy. John and Kate are
everything that I would wish, and Conrad Crow (now 19 months old) is
most satisfactory. America is interesting, and solid, whereas England, one
fears, is crumbling. Daphne3
must have had an interesting time in Belgrade.
I shall be home early in May, and I hope I shall see you soon there. All
good wishes,
Yours ever
Bertrand Russell
To W. V. Quine 212 Loring Avenue
Los Angeles, Cal.
16 Oct., 1939
Dear Dr Quine
I quite agree with your estimate of Tarski; no other logician of his
generation (unless it were yourself) seems to me his equal.
I should, consequently, be very glad indeed if I could induce the authorities
here to ?nd him a post. I should be glad for logic, for the university, for him,
and for myself. But inquiries have shown me that there is no possibility
whatever; they feel that they are saturated both with foreigners and with
logicians. I went so far as to hint that if I could, by retiring, make room for
him, I might consider doing so; but it seemed that even so the result could
not be achieved.
I presume you have tried the East: Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, etc.
Princeton should be the obvious place. You may quote me anywhere as
concurring in your view of Tarski’s abilities.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
From an anonymous correspondent Newark, N.J.
March 4, 1940
Bertrand Russell
Just whom did you think you were fooling when you had those hypo-
critically posed ‘family man’ pictures taken for the newspapers? Can your
diseased brain have reached such an advanced stage of senility as to imagine
for a moment that you would impress anyone? You poor old fool!
Even your publicly proved degeneracy cannot overshadow your vileness in
posing for these pictures and trying to hide behind the innocence of your
the autobiography of bertrand russell 446unfortunate children. Shame on you! Every decent man and woman in the
country loathes you for this vile action of yours more than your other failings,
which, after all, you inherited honestly enough from your decadent family
tree. As for your questions and concern regarding Church and State connec-
tions in this country – just what concern has anything in this country got to
do with you? Any time you don’t like American doings go back to your native
England (if you can!) and your stuttering King, who is an excellent example
of British degenerate royalty – with its ancestry of barmaids, and pantrymen!
Or did I hear some one say you were thrown out of that country of liberal
degeneracy, because you out-did the royal family. ???!
Yours
Pimp-Hater
P.S. – I notice you refer to some American Judge as an ‘ignorant fellow’. If
you are such a shining light, just why are you looking for a new appointment
at this late date in your life? Have you been smelling up the California
countryside too strongly?
From Aldous Huxley Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Pictures
Culver-City, California
19.III.40
Dear Bertie
Sympathy, I’m afraid, can’t do much good; but I feel I must tell you how
much I feel for you and Peter in the midst of the obscene outcry that has
broken out around your name in New York.
Ever yours
Aldous H.
Press statement by the Student Council, College of the City of New York
March 9, 1940
To the Editor
The appointment of Bertrand Russell to the sta? of the City College has
brought forth much discussion in the press and has evoked statements from
various organisations and individuals. We do not wish to enter any contro-
versy on Prof. Russell’s views on morals and religion; we feel that he is
entitled to his own personal views.
Prof. Russell has been appointed to the sta? of the City College to teach
mathematics and logic. With an international reputation, he is eminently
quali?ed to teach these subjects. He has been lecturing at the University of
California and has been appointed visiting professor at Harvard University
before he comes to the City College in February 1941. The student body, as
america. 1938–1944 447well as the faculty, are of the opinion that the addition of Prof. Russell to
the faculty cannot but help to raise the academic prestige and national
standing of our college.
Nobody questioned public school teachers or City College instructors
about their belief on the nature of the cosmos – whether they were Catholics,
Protestants, Jews, atheists or worshippers of the ancient Greek Pantheon –
when they were appointed. The American public education system is
founded on the principle that religion has nothing to do with secular educa-
tion and theoretically the religious beliefs of teachers have nothing to do
with their jobs. Religious groups are free to expound their views. Why not
educators?
By refusing to yield to the pressure being brought to bear and by standing
?rm on the appointment of Prof. Russell, the Board of Higher Education will
be saving City College an academic black eye and doing its duty to the
community in the highest sense.
We wish to stress again in the words of President Mead that Prof. Russell
has been appointed to the City College to teach mathematics and logic and
not his views on morals and religion.
City College has long been subject to attack from various sources seeking
to modify or destroy our free higher education; the attack on Bertrand Russell
is but another manifestation of this tendency.
Executive Committee
Student Council
The City College
To Bernard Goltz,
Secretary, the Student
Council, C.C.N.Y. March 22, 1940
Dear Mr Goltz
I am very happy to have the support of the student council in the ?ght. Old
York was the ?rst place where Christianity was the state religion, and it was
there that Constantine assumed the purple. Perhaps New York will be the last
place to have this honour.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
To William Swirsky, a student at C.C.N.Y. 212 Loring Avenue
West Los Angeles, California
March 22, 1940
Dear Mr Swirsky
Thank you very much for your letter, and for the enclosures from The
the autobiography of bertrand russell 448Campus. I am very glad indeed that the students do not share Bishop
Manning’s views about me; if they did it would be necessary to despair of
the young. It is comforting that the Board of Higher Education decided in
my favor, but I doubt whether the ?ght is at an end. I am afraid that if
and when I take up my duties at the City College you will all be disappointed
to ?nd me a very mild and ino?ensive person, totally destitute of horns
and hoofs.
Yours gratefully
Bertrand Russell
From M. F. Ashley-Montagu The Hahnemann Medical College
and Hospital of Philadelphia
31 March 1940
Dear Professor Russell
I owe you so much that I feel I could never adequately repay you for the part
which your writings have played in my own intellectual development. Having
acquired my share of inhibitions under the English ‘system’ of miseducation,
I have since 1930 gradually relieved myself of what used to be termed ‘a
natural reluctance’ to address people to whom I had not been formally intro-
duced. At this rather trying period in your life I want to reassure you. It was
really Mrs Russell’s remark (as reported in The New York Times) which is respon-
sible for precipitating this letter. This is a strange land, but you are not
strangers here. Your friends here number millions, and as you have obviously
known for a long time, this is really the most humane, and fundamentally the
most decent land in the world. That is why there is every hope, every reason to
believe, that the decision of a single jurist will ultimately be faithfully evalu-
ated for what it is worth, and your appointment to the faculty of City College
maintained. When situations such as yours are given a thorough airing I have
noted that justice is practically always done. It is only under the cloaca of local
departmental privacy that injustice succeeds and may prosper. I have on more
than one occasion su?ered the consequences of such private tyranny, but you
are a far di?erent case. There are many of us who, both as individuals and
as members of societies for the preservation of academic and intellectual
freedom, will ?ght your case, if necessary, to the last ditch. I can predict, with
a degree of probability which amounts to certainty that despite the barking
of the dogs of St Ernulphus, common decency will prevail.
I can well realise how full your mailbag must be, so please don’t attempt
to acknowledge this letter. Your sense of humour will look after you, and
you can leave the rest to us.
With all good wishes, Ever yours sincerely
M. F. Ashley-Montagu
Associate Professor of Anatomy
america. 1938–1944 449To Mr Harry W. Laidler,
of the League for Industrial Democracy
April 11, 1940
Dear Mr Laidler
The undersigned members of the Department of Philosophy at U.C.L.A. are
taking the liberty to answer your letter of inquiry addressed to Miss Creed.
We have all attended lectures or seminars conducted by Mr Russell on this
campus, and have therefore ?rst hand knowledge of the character and the
content of his teaching here. We ?nd him to be the most stimulating
teacher we have known, and his intellectual in?uence upon the student is
remarkable. The general e?ect of his teaching is to sharpen the student’s
sense of truth, both by developing his desire for truth and by leading him to a
more rigorous application of the tests of truth. Also unusual is the in?uence
of Mr Russell’s moral character upon the student. It is impossible to know
Mr Russell without coming to admire his complete fairness, his unfailing
and genuine courtesy and his sincere love of people and of humanity.
We may add that there has not been any criticism of Mr Russell’s teachings
on this campus. This Department, in recommending Mr Russell’s appoint-
ment, was aware that there would be some criticism on the part of outsiders
of such action by the University. But in no case has there been any objection
based upon Mr Russell’s work here. In inviting Mr Russell to join us we did so
in the faith that the individual instructor is entitled to his individual opinion
on political, moral and other social issues, and that unorthodox opinions in
such matters are no ground for banning an individual from public life.
You may use this letter in any way you think ?t.
Yours sincerely
Hans Reichenbach
Isabel P. Creed
J. W. Robson
Hugh Miller, Acting Chairman
From and to William Ernest Hocking, 16 Quincy Street
Professor of Philosophy Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harvard University April 30, 1940
Dear Russell
I answered part of your letter of April 14 by telegram: ‘No possible
objection to engagement at Newark.’
For the other part, which called equally for an answer – the part in which
you expressed the ‘hope that Harvard doesn’t mind too much’ – I thought it
best to wait until I could send you something tangible.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 450The enclosed clipping from Sunday’s Boston Herald gives a statement issued
Saturday evening by our governing body (‘The President and Fellows’, com-
monly dubbed ‘The Corporation’), standing by the appointment. It will also
give you a hint of the kind of attack which instigated the statement. The page
from Monday’s Crimson shows more of the inside.
Please consider what I say in comment as purely personal. Individual
members of the department have taken action, as you have noticed; but the
department has formulated no attitude, and I am speaking for myself alone.
It would be foolish for me to pretend that the university is not disturbed
by the situation. Harvard is not a ‘state university’ in the sense that it draws its
major support from legislative grants (as in Indiana, Michigan, etc.). But it is
a state institution, with certain unique provisions for its government set into
the constitution, so that political interference with our working is legally
possible. The suit promised by Thomas Dorgan, legislative agent for the City
of Boston, has some footing in the law of the Commonwealth, though the
University is prepared to meet it. But beyond that, there are possibilities of
further legislation which might be serious for an institution already an object
of dislike on the part of certain elements of the public.
As to the suit itself, the university is not proposing to contest it on the
ground of ‘freedom of speech’ or ‘freedom of teaching’ (for this would make
the university appear as protagonist of a claim of right on your part to teach
your views on sex-morals at Harvard, a claim certainly uncontemplated in
our arrangements and probably untenable at law). The university is simply
holding the ground of the independence of our appointing bodies from
outside interference. This is a defensible position, if we can show that we
have exercised and are exercising that independence with a due sense of
responsibility to our statutory obligations. This line will explain the emphasis
in the university’s statement on the scope of your lectures, and on the restric-
tion of your teaching to advanced students; under the circumstances we
shall have to abide by this limitation.
(The number of lectures mentioned in the university’s statement was taken
from the words of the founding bequest, which reads ‘not less than six’: in
practice the lectures have run to ten or twelve, partly, I suppose, because of
the shift to a biennial plan.)
We are all terribly sorry that this hue and cry has arisen, both because
of the distress to you, and because it gives capital prominence to what
(I presume) we were both considering background stu?, in which we are
de?nitely not interested. For myself, I am equally sorry that you are making
the issue one of freedom of speech in the New York situation. For if you lose,
you lose; and if you win, you lose also. And the colleges will lose, too: for the
impression already in the public mind will be deepened, that the colleges
insist on regarding all hypotheses as on the same level, – none are foolish
america. 1938–1944 451and none are immoral: they are all playthings of debate for a lot of detached
intellects who have nothing in common with the intuitions of average
mankind. Personally I am with the average man in doubting whether all
hypotheses are on the same level, or can escape the invidious adjectives.
Largely because of this, I have had, so far, nothing to say in public on this
question. I have been cultivating the great and forgotten right of the freedom
of silence, which it is hard to maintain in this country. If I were talking, I
should agree in the main with the ?rst paragraph of the editorial in the New
York Times of April 20, which you have doubtless seen, and whose refrain is
that ‘mistakes of judgment have been made by all the principals involved’.
Your scheme of lecture titles has come, and it looks splendid to me, – many
thanks. I shall write again when the department has had a chance to look
it over.
Sincerely yours
Ernest Hocking
212 Loring Avenue
Los Angeles, Cal.
May 6 1940
Dear Hocking
Thank you for your letter. It makes me wish that I could honourably resign
the appointment to the William James lectures, but I do not see how I can do
so without laying myself open to the charge of cowardice and of letting
down the interests of the whole body of teachers.
I almost wish, also, that the President and Fellows had not rea?rmed the
appointment, since as you say, and as appears in the newspaper quotation
you sent me, the opposition has considerable basis in law. From my point of
view it would be better to be dismissed now, with ?nancial compensation,
than to be robbed both of the appointment and of compensation after long
anxiety and distress.
I did not seek the appointment, and I am not so fond of the role of martyr
as to wish continuously and without respite to su?er for a cause which
concerns others so much more than me. The independence of American
universities is their a?air, not mine.
Some one seems to have misled you as to the line that I and the Board of
Higher Education in New York have taken about my appointment there. I have
never dreamed of claiming a right to talk about sexual ethics when I am hired
to talk about logic or semantics; equally, a man hired to teach ethics would
have no right to talk about logic. I claim two things: 1. that appointments to
academic posts should be made by people with some competence to judge a
man’s technical quali?cations; 2. that in extra-professional hours a teacher
should be free to express his opinions, whatever they may be. City College
the autobiography of bertrand russell 452and the Board of Higher Education based their defense solely on the ?rst of
these contentions. Their defense was therefore identical with that which you
say is contemplated by Harvard.
The principle of free speech was raised by other people, in my opinion
rightly. I am afraid that Harvard, like the New York Board, cannot prevent
popular agitation based on this principle; though it is of course obvious that
in both cases the o?cial defense of the appointment is rightly based on the
independence of duly constituted academic bodies and their right to make
their own appointments.
