THE QUAKER CONSPIRACY
Mayer, Milton
The Quaker Conspiracy By MILTON MAYER Cazenovia, N. Y. KNOWING, as I do, that the readers of The Progressive can not rest, or let their small daughters out of the house, unless they know where...
...They got the jail and converted it into Cazenovia Seminary...
...And so I commend to those of you sinners who are not afraid of looking at your world—and, if necessary, spitting in its eye—the Institutes of International Relations, sponsored all over the country, Summer and Winter, by the American Friends Service Committee in Philadelphia, P. A. And if I can get Scott Nearing to let me out for an evening—he carries a blacksnake whip, by the way—I will try the famous fodder at the Lincklaen House and let you know how I come out...
...You may have heard of them as the Quakers, and you may have heard, likewise, of their pretense of opposition to all human slavery everywhere...
...At this morning's session, for instance, Devere Allen analyzed, with Jovian impartiality, the grandiose fraud of the United Nations Charter, with added comments by Kirby Page, Haridas Mazumdar, Scott Nearing, Tucker Smith, and your servant Mayer...
...The Quaker Conspiracy By MILTON MAYER Cazenovia, N. Y. KNOWING, as I do, that the readers of The Progressive can not rest, or let their small daughters out of the house, unless they know where Mayer is and what he is up to, 1 am signing in from the spot indicated above...
...These Quakers—who, by the way...
...let me inform you that there is a town a few miles from here named Skane-ateles...
...In the ensuing real-estate scramble, the Methodists came out last, and, like the sand-lot baseball captain who comes out last on putting lists around the bat, had to take what was left...
...The Baptists were pretty cold-blooded, belonging, as they did, to a cold-water immersion sect, and began buying up the whole town in order to drive out the Methodists...
...This Nearing turns up at most of them and is a sort of trusty...
...They have me incarcerated here for a 10-day stretch...
...S. of A. I am not in a first-hand position to confirm the report in either case, inasmuch as Mr...
...At a still later date, nobody knows how or why, the Seminary was converted into Cazenovia Junior College...
...His hatred of God—a hatred which, by the way, is not mutual—is suspected of being nothing more than a cover for his membership in the Baptist Church, which is widely attributed to him because of his devotion, real or bogus, to early-morning, cold-water total-immersion...
...ALL this is...
...Krebs) has shut down for the duration of the cottage-cheese-instead-of-butter fad, and the Lincklaen House is inaccessible, even though it is a rustic block away from where I set here and write...
...In the same year, horse-stealing, week-night wife-beating, and underground railroading were alt legalized in New York State, so the prisoners were turned loose and at once went into banking and life insurance, where they are today...
...Don't believe a word of it...
...The fraudulence of the others is transparent...
...I," said Roy, "know I'm a man...
...They call it an Institute of International Relations...
...Sehaal, who runs this particular Institution, is the worst of the lot, inasmuch as he lives what looks like, superficially, a life devoted to service and hard work...
...I have not been able to find out, or even ask, who operates this production center for junior collegians during the Winter months, but it has been taken over, for these 10 Summer days, by a slave-holding outfit which goes by the name of The Society of Friends...
...In 1835 the inmates (horse-thieves, week-night wife-beat-efs, and operators of underground railroads) protested that the building was falling down, and so the place was abandoned...
...These pretended anti-slavers get you up at 6:50 in the morning...
...After 10 days, everybody is let go, but you never know, especially if you are an Authority on International Affairs, when you'll be grabbed again...
...The Quaker ring is nation-wide, operating, as is usually the case, behind the dignified, hypocritical fronts of men like Rufus Jones, Clarence Pickett, Roy McCorkel, and Red Sf-haal...
...This Nearing, suffering from a tormented conscience, gets up at 5 a. m. and begins prowling...
...What's more, this being the age of wonders, these 2 towns are known wide and far as the location of the" Lincklaen House (in Cazenovia) and The Krebs (in Skaneateles...
...Come on you," he bawls, "and run down to the lake for an invigorating swim...
...And before you say to each other, "Did you ever in all your born days hear of such a funny name for a town...
...At these Institutes, sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee, they discover anywhere from 100 to 300 people who, like themselves, need heartening, now more than ever, for the good fight, and they go home heartened, knowing that they are not alone...
...I encountered McCorkel this morning, for instance, on my daily allotted visit to the washroom at 10:30 a. m. McCorkel was shaving...
...On information obtained from usually unreliable quarters, I am able to state that these 2 country inns serve the best meals in the TJ...
...And that is, that however much or little the students actually learn during the 10-day stints, they acquire, coming, as many of them do, from small towns, the sense that all over America there are people who, like themselves, are interested in human welfare and are willing to discuss it honestly and boldly...
...After breakfast, which consists of one slice of black bread and three dried beans imported from Dachau, the faculty-members (as they are called with blatant hypocricy), are made to begin talking...
...MEANWHILE, as local legend has it, the Methodists were conducting a blood-feud with the Baptists...
...WHERE else would people fighting the good fight all by themselves in small towns, find any community of their own feeling at all...
...This jail was built, according to the proud sign in front, in 1810, and served for a quick quarter-century in that capacity under the guise of a courthouse...
...Last month they locked me up in one of these Institutes —more properly institutions—in Seattle and another in Whittier, California...
...as I say, conducted under cover of respectability...
...At 6 :45 he hangs on the iron doors of what are jokingly called his fellow faculty-members...
...They hire a man named Scott Nearing, of whom more or less later, who combines in himself the best features of masochism and sadism, and he, under cover of being an I-dare-God-to-strike-me-deader, does their dirty work for them...
...Why," I asked, at the risk of a beating for impertinence, "didn't you go swimming with Scott at 7 this morning...
...They do this until they drop...
...The fact is that I am confined in the Cazenovia jail...
...Krebs (I suppose there's a Mr...
...compel their convicts to live in the same dormitory with Negroes, Hindus, Japanese, and Jews—have these Institutions going all over the country all Summer long...
...Where else would they get the heart to go on fighting the good fight against everything that is going on, and for everything that ought to be done...
...I don't have to demonstrate it by going swimming at 7 a. m." Of all the notable aspects of these Institutes organized by the Friends, the most notable, I think, was one observed by either William Henry Chamberlin or Cleo Blackburn (the head of Flanner House in Indianapolis), both of whom were confined with me in Seattle and Whittier...
...They are compelled to talk until 10 p. m., with quick intervals for black bread and one trip to the washroom, and at 10 p. m. they are ordered to folk-dance...
Vol. 9 • August 1945 • No. 34
