Reflections on Post-War Seattle, New Year’s 1946

[One more vignette of post-war Seattle, written on New Year’s 1946. As a 20-year resident of the city’s suburbs, I find many of my father’s observations of mid-1940s Seattle quite interesting (the aversion to umbrellas remains strong, but is no longer universal). It seems that the good citizens of Seattle were more than happy to make a profit off the returning troops, who for all their drinking and partying couldn’t — to my father’s mind — conquer the “loneliness of spirit” that they shared with most other Americans.]

January 1, 1946 (Seattle, WA)

Seattle is one of the northernmost of US cities, but, being within breezing distance of the Japanese current, its winters are not as severe as they are exasperating. It’s an unusual day when a little rain falls. On a usual day a lot of rain falls. No one really worries about getting wet, but accepts his daily soaking as a matter of course. I haven’t noticed an umbrella during ten days in Seattle.

Seattle, like most other American cities, is much less impressive as an old acquaintance than as a bustling stranger. As a port city, it sees more than its share of soldiers and sailors, and sees them only as short-time transients bent on having a good time. Entertainment is a booming business for Seattle people, and the boys in the service are never in any doubt that it is a business. They pay top prices for anything that’s offered to them, and most of what they get is second-rate, or worse. But the simple pressure of their numbers makes them powerless to protest, and most of them have enough money to give them a “what-the-hell” attitude. But among themselves they curse the city volubly.

No doubt the good people of Seattle do a little private cursing of the troops. The boys go into town to get drunk and look for girls. These are the things they’ve been dreaming about most avidly during the months overseas, and as they come plowing deep into Puget Sound on the ships, they begin to build Seattle up into the Mecca of their longings. The people of Seattle apparently don’t make much objection to the damage done their city’s morals by the uniformed pilgrims, but they probably grow quite weary of their streets reeling with drunken, brawling, flirting kids.

On First Avenue are the military trinket stores and the penny arcades. Most of the boys make a bee-line from the ships to the trinket stores to stock up on the stripes, patches, medals, buttons, theater ribbons, overseas “hershey bars,” caps, and hash marks which become the visible marks of glory. Then, after everything is sewed and pinned in place (often at the USO on Second Avenue), they launch off into the city to consume and conquer. Several hours and a good many dollars later they drift back to their ships and barracks to boast or bitch, according to their respective fortunes.

The only regular stage performance in Seattle is a dingy burlesque show at the Rivoli on First Avenue. (Sin, by the way, is arranged symbolically in Seattle. It parades in its rawest forms along First Avenue, which is the waterfront, becomes more refined on each succeeding avenue up the hill, and is sophisticated practically beyond recognition by the time one reaches Sixth Avenue.) The movie theatres, which carry such piquant names as the Blue Mouse and the Music Box, are mostly all owned by a Mr. John Hamrick. Mr. Hamrick had a very mediocre offering for the Christmas season. “The Stork Club,” featuring Betty Hutton and Barry Fitzgerald, was as good as anything going, and it was not good at all. But the theatres stay open all night, and draw the bulk of their late-evening patronage from boys on pass who have no other place to go.

There’s one thing about Seattle, and about any other American city, that most fellows can’t understand, because they’re products of the city way of life. They’ve learned to depend on the mechanical, commercialized dispensers of “pleasure,” which never really please. The human spirit has probably never before been more completely neglected than it is in America today. Even lovemaking has no significance beyond its physical thrills, and the most intimate moments are shared by fellows and girls after an evening’s, or even an hour’s, acquaintance. There is in almost every American a tremendous loneliness of spirit coupled with an ignorance of the means of spiritual fulfillment. Spending money is the most obvious opiate for his vast restlessness, and just now he has plenty of money. Probably during this New Year of 1946 Americans will spend more money to satisfy personal wants than ever before, and then come to the end of the year as dismally dissatisfied as ever.

Read Full Post »

Last of the Code-Room Arias

[One more of my father’s youthful poems, which he wrote while attending a 13-week radio course at The Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia. He called the handful of poems he composed while attending the radio school “code-room arias.”]

December 21, 1944 (Fort Benning, Ga.)

Last of the code-room arias:

I like to think I ride a wave across the years,

I like to think its massive swell will bear me safe

Across the rocks and coral reefs.

But when I stop to think where all waves go,

I wonder whether mine, at last, will roll up some white beach

And spend itself caressing warm white sands,

Or whether it will dash on some black rock crag

And there explode in furious spray.

I don’t know which end I’d prefer.

Sometimes it’s good to dream of sand;

But other days I crave the rock, –

The sudden, scintillating crash

Resolved to chaos,

Bold and final.

Read Full Post »

Military Might a Poor Measure of America’s Democracy

[In this short excerpt, my father warns against rating the success of America’s democracy by using the scale of its military might. Interestingly, he suggests that the better measures are variables including “the happiness and the mental and spiritual development of the citizens of the democracy.” Such subjective measures have become in vogue in recent years, with various studies attempting to measure the happiness, life satisfaction and “subjective well being” of citizens in different nations. (See, e.g. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/and http://www.gnhusa.org/.) Sadly, on such measures, the U.S. often doesn’t score on a level that would make many “America-always-the-best” boosters very happy. Also, I think my father’s critique of Churchill’s empire-centric statement relates nicely to some of America’s recent missteps and misadventures in the Middle East.]

November 30, 1943 (Ft. Leonard Wood, Mo.)

… A repatriated Japanese, as reported in TIME, told the folks at home that America was a formidable enemy in spite of the weakness she imposed on herself by her indulgence in free speech and other democratic perversions. A lot of people will react to such a statement like this: “Wait until we’ve trampled Japan in defeat. Then they’ll see how strong a nation can be that has free speech.” There’ll be a certain truth in their statement, a good democrat would agree, but a dangerous emphasis. The implication will be seen that free speech is a foundation of our military greatness and strength. And military strength is a dangerous standard to become accustomed to in the evaluation of the liberties of democracy. The true standard is the happiness and the mental and spiritual development of the citizens of the democracy. Militarism seems to be one of the surest roads to the suppression of the democratic liberties, and shouldn’t be linked with them in the minds of the people.

This little distinction flashed to my mind as I was reading TIME, and later applied itself to another situation. It occurred to me that national leaders may sometimes strive for objects that will do their people no good, and possibly much harm, because they measure their actions and plans by wrong standards. What was Winston Churchill thinking of, for instance, when he stated that he was not elected prime minister to preside over the dismemberment of the British Empire? Was it perhaps the pages of history, where empires stand in great prestige, or was it the millions of people who have some reason to believe that empire accounts for a least a share of their present misery. The standards of history in the past have been mostly aristocratic. If Churchill takes his cues from this history, he is reduced in stature as a democratic leader, of whom more popular standards are demanded.

Read Full Post »

Democracy as a Political and Spiritual Base

 [The following is the first section of a long entry in which my father identifies democracy as his “base.” The catalyst for this essay was an Armistice Day talk delivered by Pierre de Lanux, a French writer and diplomat. My father suggests that each person needs to stuggle with and answer questions about democracy before becoming a true adherent to the democratic “faith.” The majority of Americans who have not “examined the foundations of their faith” represent a great danger to the country, he argues. This danger certainly hasn’t disappeared in modern-day America, where large numbers of people are swayed by superficial slogans and charismatic “leaders” (Sarah Palin, Glen Beck, etc.), and where anti-intellectualism has become a badge of honor. ]

November 11, 1942 (Middlebury College)

… Pierre de Lanux spoke in chapel this morning. He read a paper on the significance of this Armistice Day. The ideas weren’t new, but he gave them distinction with his French fire and charm. I wonder what was in his mind about France at the moment of his reading. Hope, perhaps. For the German armies are marching into the unoccupied territories, and that could mean the end of the humiliating armistice. It can mean that all Frenchman will be united again in their resistance to Hitler, and not painfully divided into the free French, and the traitors. It must have been hard on true Frenchmen to bear this shame of their country. France reduced in a few months of fighting from one of the great champions of liberty and democracy to a vassal of a barbarian state? It didn’t seem possible. It wasn’t possible. Resistance has continued. The stories of uprising, and hostage-shooting have probably been only an indication to us outside of a common spirit of defiance within that country. I hope so. I hope that it is ever so wherever men have known freedom.

I seem to grow vaporous, I know, but it is clear in my own mind what I mean. I could not say this a year ago, but now I know. I have found my base, and I shall not be shaken from it, though explore it more I must, and that thru the rest of my life. My base is democracy. Not a strange choice, you may say, for one who has grown up in a democratic country. But I who have made the choice do not look at it that way. A country is not democratic, strictly speaking. A country is a portion of the earth’s surface where people live. The characteristics we carelessly confer on a country are really those of its people, and not of all of its people, at that, and not of any two people in exact similarity.

There are a lot of people in this country who are not democratic. Those that openly profess themselves of different creeds are not so much to be feared. They are known; they may be fought on their own terms, and the fight, so it be conducted rationally, cannot fail but be salutary for all sides concerned. It is the great mass of people who have not examined the foundations of their faith that holds the great danger for America. If a man does not know where he stands, he may be easily induced to stand anywhere. If he passively accepts the proposal that he is a member of a democratic nation, that is not enough. He must ask himself, “Why democratic? How democratic?” If he finds the answers to these questions himself, then he is a trustworthy champion of democracy.

I am in the process now of asking myself “Why democratic? And how democratic?” I have not found all the answers. But I am on their trail, and I am conscious of the fact that I have taken my stand. When I say it is good that the people of France may again be united against Germany, the price that they must pay in physical suffering and death is not absent from my mind. But I know now that I am willing to pay that same price when the time comes, for it will preserve to me the serenity of mind and the purity of spirit which man must come to look upon as his most prized possessions if he is to be worthy his name.

I know that there are many people to whom these words will carry little meaning. Until so recently have I myself mistrusted them, in fact, that I am surprised with the confidence with which I use them now. But I am willing to accept this confidence as evidence of spiritual growth. And in explaining this last, I can say only that it is a consciousness of an integrity of myself with the rest of the world which I have not had before. The shapes are dim as yet, but they are appearing. Experience of day to day fits more and more into forms and patterns, and I am conscious of the process. I can’t claim that it is mystical, but it is certainly more than material. My attitude towards the creeds of particular sects is unchanged, and is only a reflection on this side of me of my basic individualistic bent, of my natural dislike for imitation. If I discover spiritual realities, and eventually shape them into a pattern that may properly be called a religion, it will be what I myself have found and discovered, not what someone else has handed to me ready made…

Read Full Post »