5p, one sided pages, mimeograph on matte off white paper. Staple in top left corner, 15 horizontal folds. Mentions again that Perry Saito, a Japanese American give an informal talk on Japanese Relocation problems in March mentions that Clifford Pope, curator of Herpetology in the Chicago Natural History Museum, will visit the college in May Paul Radin talked about Race and Race Theory John Stix writing to confirm his arrival. Mentions that Charles A. Beaard, the Dean of American Historians, and his wife, visited last Thursday and Friday.
BLACK MOUNTAIN COLLEGE COMMUNITY BULLETIN
College Year 11 Bulletin 21
Monday, February 28, 1944
CALENDAR FOR THE WEEK:
The Board of Fellows will hold its monthly Business Meeting this afternoon at 4:30 o’clock in Study 10.
The International Relations Club will meet this evening at 6:45 o’clock in the Lobby of the North Lodge. Several papers will be read on “The Responsibility of the United Nations for Peace.”
The Faculty and Student Officers will meet on Wednesday afternoon at 4:30 o’clock in the Kocher Room (Anthropology Class will meet from 5:00 to 6:00 o’clock in the Language Room)
The students will hold their regular weekly meeting in the Lobby of North Lodge on Thursday evening at 7:00 o’clock.
Fritz Hansgirg will talk on “Magnesium” on Thursday evening at 8:00 o’clock in the Dining Hall.
Perry Saito, an American of Japense descent, will give an informal talk on Japanese Relocation Problems in the Lobby of North Lodge on Saturday, March 4 at 7:00 o’clock.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
“Black Mountain College: Its Aims and Methods,” an article by Kenneth Kurtz, appears in the Winter Issue of The Haverford Review.
Herbert Miller will attend the luncheon meeting of the United States Nations Committee in Asheville today.
Mr. Clifford Pope, Curator of Herpetology in the Chicago Natural History Museum, will visit the College in May and will conduct a number of field trips in the neighboring mountains while collecting for the Museum.
Mr. Pope is a native of Georgia, a graduate of the University of Virginia and an outstanding person in his field. He accompanied Roy Chapman Andrews on his explorations in China and wrote the definitive book on the Herpetology of China. He is also the author of Snakes Alive, and How They Live, and Turtles of the United States.
Paul Radin will talk to the soldier convalescents at the Moore General Hospital on “Race and Race Theories” tomorrow afternoon at 1:00 o’clock.
Bob Wunsch and the Student Officers will present a panel on “Student Government at Black Mountain College” tomorrow afternoon before the Faculty of Stephens-Lee High School in Asheville.
The Black Mountain College Players will present Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” at the Lee H. Edward’s High School in Asheville on Friday evening, March 3, at 8:00 o’clock as a feature of the District Dramatic Festival. On Saturday morning, in a program entitled “Several Women”, Betty Kelley will enact a scene from Sidney Howard’s “Alien Corn”, Carol Datrow will give August Strindberg’s “The Stronger”, and Betty Kelley and Renate Klepper will give Perene Molnar’s “A Matter of Eusbands”. As part of the Elementary School Children’s Program on Saturday morning Betty Kelley will give a synopsis of her fairy play, tentatively entitled “Mere Straw for the Scarecrow.”
In a note from Lee M. Soloman, Editor of Wide World Photos, Inc: “We are returning the photographs of Black Mountain College you were good enough to lend us….We have copied those we needed and are issuing to our subscribing newspapers a set of eleven photographs for use on and after Sunday, March 12.
B M C COMMUNITY BULLETIN – 1943-44 BULLETIN- #21- Page Two
WITH FORMER STUDENTS:
New Addresses:
A/S Kenneth A. Ayres
313 C.T.D. P.G.B
University of Nevada
Reno, Nevada
Licut. Wm. F. Hanchett, Jr.
Student Instructor Dutch.
Class 44-3, Barracks Dutch.
Randolph Field, Texas
A/S Otis Levy, 31342705
Squadron 3, Barracks B
SAAAB
Santa Ann, California
Mrs. Bruno Piscitello (Aurora Cassotta)
2201 Tenth Street
Wichita Falls, Texas
A/S Burke D. Corbet
Squadron 3
SAAAB
Santa Ann, California
AC 2 Erik Haugaard R 266321
No. B.G. School, Mont Joli
Quebec, Canada
Lieutenant Don Page
451st Fighter Squadron
Grand Central Air Terminal
Glendale, California
Sergeant John M. Stix, 17077542
Hq. Co. 59th Sig. Bn.
APO 887, C/O Postmaster
New York, New York
IN THE MAIL:
Danny Deaver is now Lieutenant John A. Deaver. He was graduated in Class 44-3 in the Air Forces Advanced Navigation School of Ellington Field, Texas on Saturday morning, February 26.
B M C COMMUNITY BULLETIN – 1943-44 BULLETIN- #21- Page Three
Lieutenant Don Page writes from Glendale, California: “I’m now an Assistant S-2 (Intelligence Officer) in a Fighter Squadron. Since I’ve been here only two days, I have done little… The B.O.Q. is in the gambling room of a former casino. It’s a huge room- all gilt and baroque plaster…. We’ve been having unusual weather ever since I arrived- rain; continual and drenching. The whole field is one big muddy lake.
Aurora Cassotta Piscitello writes: “I think and Bruno agrees with me that the Bulletins are not so much dull as incomplete. We talk, eat and sleep B.M.C., but our only actual contacts are the Bulletins. To read that such and such took place on such and such a day, or period, is most exasperating. We want more, then some. Maybe we are being selfish in our thirst for news of B.M.C.”
John Stix writes on February 15 from “Somewhere in England”: “Just a word to confirm my arrival, if that’s what you can call it. Nothing’s permanent these days and at present we’re having much too agreeable a time for it even to resemble a permanent assignment. Just as in any part of England, we’re a stone’s throw from ‘town’… and ‘town’ to the doughboy spells the difference between isolation and a hell of a good time which is what we’ve been having…. I am working.. at last, but that’s a formidable word for what I actually do, an eight-hour shift which so far isn’t too much of a task on my non-commissioned brain, followed by twenty-four hours free time. Eight of the twenty-four hours we may spend on pass and not infrequently I manage to consume a liberal amount of bitter or Guinness Stout beside which a Budweiser or a Schlitz would literally pale. English beer has completely spoiled me for any American beverage by the same name… The bulletins haven’t begun to catch up with me, but I do look forward to them. I don’t care how stale they are when they arrive.”
WITH FORMER MEMBERS OF THE STAFF:
New Addresses:
Mr. and Mrs. Fred R. Mangold
American Embassy
Mexico, D.F. Mexico
Mr. and Mrs. Gormna I. Mattison
201 Davis Street
Elkins, West Virginia
COMMUNITY WORK SUMMARY:
(Week of February 21 through February 26)
At the Farm this week the barn loft was filled with hay from outdoor stocks.
Wood cutters worked as usual, and the clearing in that area approached completion. Quite a substantial quantity of wood was taken off the pasture and buzzed.
The beef shed being added to the back of the barn was framed, and the flooring of the loft was nearly completed.
The remains of the fencing around the old hog lot was torn down.
Several students spent all their work hours in the Office checking address lists and bringing them up to date.
Mica trimming continued as usual.
Reported by Nell Goldsmith
From the Farm during the week came four bushels of potatoes and four hundred quarts of milk.
Reported by Janet Holing
B M C COMMUNITY BULLETIN- 1943-44 BULLETIN- #21- Page Four
MAIN EVENTS OF THE WEEK IN REVIEW:
On Thursday evening, in the College Dining Hall, Paul Radin spoke on “Race and Race Theories.” He said, in part:
“It is absolutely imperative not to separate the description and discussion of race from the theories developed in connection with race. If we do not do so, and treat them separately, what we say will sound like nonsense to any rational person or any person of normal common sense. Why should this be so? That is what I shall attempt to explain in this lecture.
“The comparative anatomists who first differentiated between the different groups of human beings who inhabit the world did so for purely descriptive purposes. It no more occurred to the man responsible for the division of the human race into the five familiar ‘races’ of the Eighteenth Century- Negro, brown, red, yellow and white- to associate special mental and emotional traits with them that it would have been if he had been describing rats. If the anatomists subsequently became dissatisfied with this superficial distinction and substituted for it an artificially determined head-form in varying association with a certain range of skin-color, hair-type, eye-color and nose-formation, that was because they were seeking for greater precision in their differentiations. This remained throughout, however, on a purely descriptive non-evaluating level. It was only by keeping it on such a level that it had any value or served any purpose at all. It is only to the credit of those anatomists that they were never led astray on this point. Yet differentiations begot differentiations, and soon the classification of the races of mankind became a hopeless medley in which on anatomist selected one trait as representing the fundamental differentiating factor, another, another. The rediscovery of Mendelian inheritance in the nineties of the last century made the chaos even more pronounced. In short the anatomists had to content themselves with simply saying, first, that the Negro differed from the white man in skin-color and hair-type, that he agreed with half of the white race in head-form; secondly, that the white man differed from the Mongolian in skin-color and hair-type but agreed with him in head-form; and finally that the differences of the skin-color and hair-type between the white man and the Mongolian were not as sharp as those between the white man and the Negro.
In so confusing a situation nothing could very well be done. Yet something was done, something did happen. Suddenly we find the physical traits of races correlated with specific mental and emotional traits. What races? Whose races? On the face of it this is pure nonsense. Yet why was it not relegated to the real of pure romance? The reason for that lies in the fact that it had become associated with racial theories that had developed quite independently of the anatomist’s attempts at classification and on a contradictory, irrational and highlight subjective basis.
Here we have nonsense associated with nonsense. But why should this have been given any credence? The answer is to be sought in its usefulness in the economic exploitation of aboriginal races of the world predominately by the English and secondarily by the French and German. Only then does it make sense and only then can we explain the role it has played in Nazian and fashioned only then can we understand so crowing an absurdity and insult to our intelligence and our humanity as the segregation of the blood of Negroes from that of white people in the United States in connection with blood transfusion.
It is not to the credit of the professors in the German universities between 1880 and 1920 that they were largely responsible for so elaborating this unholy union that it could attain so supreme a form of viciousness as it has been since the rise of Hitler.”
B M C COMMUNITY BULLETIN- 1943-44 BULLETIN- #21- Page Five
Thursday and Friday:
Dr. Charles A. Beaard, the Dean of American historians, and his wife, were guests of the College on Thursday and Friday of last week.
On Thursday evening they met with the members of the Faculty and several students in Bob Wunsch’s study and talked with them informally about modern education. Later they attended Paul Radin’s lecture on “Race and Race Theories.”
On Friday morning, in the Clark Foremans’ living room, Dr. Beard talked informally with students and teachers about the American scene. He denounced the alackness of integrity on the part of public officials who sell state information for private profit. This tendency Dr. Beard pointed out started with the late Calvin Coolidge but has flourished under the present administration.
The famous historian called for a recognition that state secrets are public property and and that if they are to made public the official should line his pockets with the money which magazines or others are willing to pay for scoops. He told the Faculty and the students of Black Mountain College that the heritage of democracy can only be preserved by a clear distinction being observed between the public welfare and private interests.
At another point the historian warned against any extension of American imperialism after this war. He said that neither American prosperity nor the public welfare could be enhanced by further conquest and subordination of other peoples to our will. IN reply to questions from the student he suggested that it would be well for us to come to a decision as to which parts of the American Empire we are willing to include in the republic on a basis of equality with the rest of our citizens, and then arrange to liberate the remaining parts in a way that would be fair to them.
Dr. Beard foresaw the possibility of Hawaii and Alaska’s being admitted into the Union as states but favored granting Puerto Rico full independence in some such manner as that accorded the Philippines.
Dr. Beard denounced the proposal made by some college presidents that seventeen-year old boys be drafted in order that the colleges may be kept going at government expense. He spoke strongly against any such attempt on the part of the largo colleges to solve their economic problems at the expense of the government and the seventeen-year old boys.
During their visit to Black Mountain College, Dr. and Mrs. Beard in addition to holding discussions with students and Faculty visited classes and inspected the College mica mine and farm. As a dairy farmer himself in Connecticut, Dr. Beard expressed his satisfaction with the professional way in which the College Farm is being run.
On Saturday evening Black Mountain College students presented, under the direction of Eric Bentley, a new play about Nazi Germany in a novel fashion; it was not acted but read aloud, with all the affects of radio production. Incidental music was composed and played on the organ by Frederic Cohen. The play, “The Private Life of the Master Race” by Bertolt Brocht, had never before been given in English; it had, as a matter of fact, only just been translated into English by Eric Bentley.
As far as is known, the play had not been given before in full in any language, not even in the original German, though selections have been produced before Russian Troops at Loningrad. The author, Bertholt Brecht, was one of the most famous playwrights of pro-Hitler Germany; nearly twenty years ago he was
