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In Praise of Western Civ

In 1946-47, I took the required three-quarter Western Civ course (“What Freshmen Need to Know,” March/April). It contained several facts and did not encourage us to “think on a fuzzie [sic] track.” No other intellectual experience has approached it for the deep and enduring value it has had in my life.

Moreover, no attempt was made to “integrate” the study of history with other humanities subjects I took. Having been blessed with a three-digit IQ, I was able to perform whatever integratory tasks were called for on my own. I am grateful that such respect was shown for my intelligence and that of my classmates, and wonder why today’s faculty feel they have to chew our food for us instead of just putting it on the table.

John W. Bush, ’50
Brooklyn, New York

Am I the only person left who says universities are the leading bastions of socialistic thought, and who warns young Christians who go to college, “Don’t let them ruin your faith”? Is the Stanford freshman curriculum in that category? It almost seems “classical education” is an outmoded idea. What a loss, and what a pity!

Jo Jean DeCristoforo, ’45
Sacramento, California

Coed Misadventures

Parents of undergraduates must have been shocked to read that their male and female offspring are taking showers naked together in the Chi Theta Chi house (“The Far Side of the Farm,” March/April). Pictures were taken of this rite of immorality and later proudly displayed at the entrance to the coed co-op. All of this nonsense was approved by the house social manager and by this magazine, whose editorial standards of decency and morality have sunk to a new nadir. The University administration is apparently asleep to these misadventures.

Eugene Danaher, PhD ’46
Tallahassee, Florida

Wearing the Uniform

Roman Skaskiw’s article was refreshing (E-mail from Iraq, March/April). My experience with Stanford students was significantly different. As a USMC officer, my homecoming flight from Vietnam in March 1970 was diverted from Travis Air Force Base to a base outside of L.A. to avoid the antiwar rants of “baby-killer” that were being delivered from protesters, mainly from the nearby campuses of Berkeley and Stanford.

How ironic that 31 years later, my son, a New Yorker like Mr. Skaskiw, would also graduate from Stanford. Obviously, my feelings for Stanford have mellowed. I enjoy your magazine as a Stanford parent.

Daniel P. Donovan
Lido Beach, New York

In your March/April issue, you carry an eloquent article by an Army captain. You title it “What Are We Doing Here?” although Capt. Roman Skaskiw, ‘01, is quite clear what he is able to do for and with his Iraqi friends and expresses “great satisfaction” in doing it.

But editor Kevin Cool (First Impressions) is unwilling to let the captain’s story speak for itself. His bouquet to Capt. Skaskiw calls up memories of a motion picture in which American soldiers, in “the charred, mangled remnants of a Vietnamese city,” sing the Mickey Mouse Club song. This reminds Mr. Cool of “the ambivalence so many people feel about America,” and leads him to categorize three attitudes about American soldiery, only one of which is to find them both admirable and useful, but one of which is to “so abhor the notion of sanctioned killing they can’t stomach the uniform.”

I don’t know how representative Mr. Cool is of the Stanford family. Washington’s soldiers wore that uniform and created the country that nurtures him. Lincoln’s soldiers wore it, preserving the Union and ending slavery. Sixty and more years ago, I and millions of young Americans wore it and turned back a murderous tyrant who would have plunged the world into the dark ages and destroyed everything universities like Stanford stand for. Only a few years ago, the country whose soldiers wore that uniform was the only country both willing and able to stop genocide in the Balkans. Opinions differ sharply about the goals and prospects for success of the current war, but should lead no American citizen to be so blind to courage and sacrifice as to find that “they can’t stomach the uniform.” I am reminded of these lines by the poet Edgar Lee Masters:

What is this I hear of sorrow and weariness,
Anger, discontent and drooping hopes?
Degenerate sons and daughters,
Life is too strong for you—
It takes life to love Life.

Richard W. Jencks, ’46, JD ’48
Mill Valley, California

As a military service member, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to focus on alumni in the military. Just to let you know, there are more than 130 active-duty officers who have graduated from Stanford (undergraduate and graduate) in the Army today.

Mike Siegl, ’95
Washington, D.C.

The President’s Words

The creation of the Stanford Institute for the Environment is great news. I wish it had existed during my time at the Farm (President’s Column, March/April). I was disappointed in the lack of urgency in President Hennessy’s statement, “This is the century when we must learn how to live in an environmentally sustainable way.” Do we really have 100 years to figure this out? Perhaps. But our planet will be a very different, less hospitable home if we don’t act more quickly.

Ted Tuescher, ‘84
Mill Valley, California

I am bewildered that the magazine let an egregious misuse of the word enormity slip through. The word refers to abomination, horribleness, and has nothing to do with size or volume.

Ted Bache
Menlo Park, California

Even if our leadership were not focused on fighting mortality by disease and malnutrition, future prospects for the biological world and for the human population would be grim. A focus on providing clean water rather than the means of reproductive limitation is irresponsible and immoral.

Raymond R. White, PhD ’73
Palo Alto, California

Wallace No Communist

Are we supposed to believe that Henry Wallace, FDR’s vice president from 1941 to 1945, was a Communist (“For the Record,” Showcase, March/April)? It’s true that when Wallace ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the Progressive Party, he was endorsed by the Communist Party, along with other groups. For those who believe in guilt by association, I suppose this indicates Wallace was a Communist.

The truth is that Wallace was a homegrown American idealist who fervently supported FDR and continued to pursue the goals of the New Deal after Roosevelt’s death. The issue is not whether his ideas were right or wrong. The issue is whether they should be dismissed by slapping an inaccurate and pejorative label on them.

As a graduate student, I used the Hoover Institution’s library and archives, which are among Stanford’s greatest assets. I hope the recordings in the Commonwealth Club collection will be accurately labeled.

Emily H. Schwartz, MA ’64, PhD ’73
Austin, Texas

Minna’s Memories

An item in “Century at Stanford” (March/April) brought back memories of the wonderful landlady of my graduate student days. Minna Stillman, daughter of the first chair of the chemistry department and, in her own right, first head of the Stanford Libraries documents division, was in her mid-80s when I knew her. She was still working in the library and bringing her fierce intelligence to bear on economic and political issues in a women’s seminar on campus. On the day that John F. Kennedy was shot, she reassured me about the state of the union by telling me she remembered that when “Mr. McKinley” was shot, the federal bureaucracy kept going pretty much on its own.

She had arrived at Stanford as a 12-year-old girl just as the first buildings were being built and had lived in the same faculty house ever since. She remembered the Stanfords, David Starr Jordan, the Hoovers and that most long-winded of dinner guests, William James. She was home alone the night of the 1906 earthquake because her parents had gone to the opera in San Francisco and spent the night there.

Minna’s account of the tragic events of the 1903 Iroquois Theatre fire in Chicago, in which she lost her twin sister, differed slightly from yours. Minna had stayed home that evening and so was not at the theater when her sister died. Remembering Minna’s devotion to accuracy in things large and small, I thought she would want us to get the story straight in this historical column.

Camille Hanlon, PhD ’64
Waterford, Connecticut

Big One Missing

“Planet Cardinal” (Red All Over, March/April) highlighted the involvement of Stanford alums in Oscar-nominated films, but missed a big one: Rick Porras, ‘88, was an assistant producer of some kind on the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Thanks for your great work. I always enjoy the magazine. I especially enjoy Rod Searcey’s excellent photographs.

Chris Myers, ’88
Portland, Oregon

Investigating Jesus

In response to Elaine Pagels (“The Gospel Truth,” January/February), I am grieved that her pain at the loss of her friend was not addressed as a young teen. She might have been spared years of confusion. The truth is that Christianity exemplifies compassion; the life and death of Jesus Christ illustrate the truest meaning of selfless love.

To “identify oneself as Christian,” as Ms. Pagels has done, yet to miss the uniqueness of Jesus is to misunderstand the Christian faith. He claimed: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.” (John 14:6) As has been written, Jesus was either truly the Son of God, as he claimed, or he was a liar or a lunatic!

Ms. Pagels presents a different faith than the historic faith of Christ’s followers for the past 2,000 years. Her ideas about additional, extrabiblical gospel writings have been refuted many times over the years. What has remained as the gospel truth is this: Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God who fully revealed God to the race he created and who offered himself as the only means by which that sinful race can be reconciled to God.

I urge readers to investigate the claims of Jesus Christ for themselves. They may wish to begin with Lee Strobel’s helpful book, The Case for Christ.

Winnifred Coe Verbica, ’56
San Jose, California

Back in the Saddle

I so enjoyed the article, “Still Riding High” about Juliette Suhr (Class Notes Spotlight, March/April). She is not only the grande dame of endurance riding, but also a grand lady in every respect. I was disappointed there was not more detailed information as to how to get her book. I did find out: contact Marinera Publishing, 100 Marinera Road, Scotts Valley, CA 95066 or www.endurance.net/juliesuhr; phone (831) 335-5948; fax (831) 335-5933; $24.95 (+ $5 shipping). I am sure many would like to read Ten Feet Tall, Still.

Annette Gattuccio Bianco, ’46
Phoenix, Arizona

A Grandfather’s Dream

My son, John, is now a sophomore at Stanford. Both his father and I were first-generation college students (“Family Firsts,” January/February). My grandfather (Pap-Pap) worked in the steel mills in Uniontown, Pa. The mining company built small row houses where many families lived. The small community was generally depressing; it was a great place to be from.

Pap-Pap only had a sixth-grade education, but he strongly encouraged all of us to go to college. He resented the fact that he was pulled out of school to start working in the coal mines, as were four other brothers and sisters, so that his youngest brother could finish high school.

He applauded U.S. technical achievements and would tell me, when I was little, that we’d put a man on the moon before I turned 35. Actually, it happened when I was 10, and he was still alive to see it. When I was pregnant with John, it was Pap-Pap who told me he had a dream and knew that I would have a little boy and raise him very successfully.

Who would have guessed that in three generations, the family would go from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the idyllic academic biosphere known as Stanford? Thanks for reminding me of this.

Sue Garrod
Kailua-Kona, Hawaii

Breathing Difficulty

It sounds as if the “Magicians” of Palo Alto (Being There, January/February) honestly believe that breathing is “really a choice” rather than a need. It should not be surprising, then, that they might debate whether another person should be allowed that choice in the first place. I only hope that the two beautiful girls being raised by “all these different adults” never learn that their very caretakers at one point questioned whether they should be born at all.

Shanti Dickson, ’96
Santa Clara, California

How grateful one (or both) of Robin Bayer’s twin girls must be to the Magic group to have been given the “choice” to breathe.

Beth Webster, ’77
Annecy, France

Hope for Grad Students

I was pleased to read about the soon-to-be-opened Graduate Student Center (“Rooms of Their Own,” Farm Report, January/February), having spent a year on the Farm in 1981-82 pursuing a master’s degree. In addition to having no central place to meet, graduate students were not a very homogeneous group—married and single, with and without children, living on campus and off. Some were perhaps already “beaten up” a bit by the real world, others still a little wet behind the ears.

To the undergrads, we were a motley group of older and likely poorer folks, being so overly focused on our studies and research, who long ago had lost all sense of how to have fun. Those of us who had non-Stanford undergraduate degrees were viewed as not fully “Cardinal red.”

Nonetheless, many of us still bought the Stanford T-shirts and sweatshirts and went to all the football games. We could take heart that many of us were light years ahead of the undergrads in maturity—this I would say to myself, just before some undergrad’s BMW cut off my repair-prone MGB late at night when, after a long evening of study, I was heading home to an inviting plate of macaroni at my tiny Menlo Park apartment.

Eventually, I did find one place—Breakers Eating Club. I learned to stomach the occasional ill-prepared meals by that unique cooking team of political science/electrical engineering/MBA grad students, for Breakers allowed me to meet fellow graduate students from around the world.

Maybe this new Graduate Student Center will lead to a much greater unification of grad students, and hopefully better meals—and maybe it will allow grad students to reclaim that sense of how to have fun.

Donald A. Bentley, MS ’82
La Puente, California

Syria Revisited

Your January/February Showcase has an excerpt from Scott Davis’s The Road From Damascus, a book I enjoyed. But why choose the anecdote “My Afternoon Tea with the Secret Police”? As the editor correctly states, in his book Davis “puts a human face on Syria.” However, the only Syrians in your selection were secret police and would-be policemen.

It’s too bad, because most Syrians in the book are friendly and hospitable. You neglect to mention that Davis was worried because he was a journalist traveling improperly on a tourist visa, and that the incident he describes is not typical of Syria today. Davis writes early in the book that when he revisited Syria in 2001 he found things “relaxed,” he was “completely unafraid,” and the police were polite.

It is revealing that your editor describes Syria as an “enigmatic country” and finds it “surprising” that Syrians generally feel affection for Americans. Perhaps the editor holds a stereotype that is inaccurate. Like Davis, I have visited and enjoyed Syria, and I recommend The Road from Damascus. In it your readers will find the human face of Syria that didn’t make it into STANFORD.

Laurence “Larry” Michalak, ’64
Oakland, California

More Lore

It was a nice trip back to read about bear tracks on Hoover Tower, Doodles Weaver, etc. (“Getting the Axe,” Letters, March/April). But how could [Ralph Whittaker, ’49] overlook Warren G. Wonka, who appeared so often in the Quad, or George Tirebiter or the Little Profs (were there six of them?) with their briefcases and hats all marching in a row?

Hobert W. (Bert) Burns, ’50, EdD ’57
San Jose, California

Too Small

Thank you for sending STANFORD. I am really interested in what President Hennessy has to say, and in general the headlines and table of contents entice me to read it, but the small print of the articles discourages me (the advertisements have big enough print). I understand that it may be a difficult decision to leave things out that interest people, but I am surely not the only one who does not like the small font size.

Maria Decker
Menlo Park, California

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