February 1969
410 Precita Avenue
San Francisco, Cal. 94110
California State Senate George Moscone
Tenth Senatorial District State Capitol
Sacramento, Cal. 95814
Dear Senator Moscone:
I met you once only, in the streets of San Francisco and was so favorably impressed that I voted for you then, have been voting for you since and am entirely satisfied with your philosophy and your record.
I am not a sociologist. My interests run in other directions, in the international field and food problems. We are getting nowhere simply because the éclat of personalities and pressure emotions are far more to the fore than thinking, calm or otherwise. I do not see any generation gap. I find the young wish to think and their elders wish to emote. While dispassionate about presumable sociological problems, justified or unjustified, I would rather at this time see millions wasted in questionable slum clearance than in a dramatic and totally wasteful efforts to land a man on the moon. Besides this we are stuck with a war economy and constructive alternatives are shunted or shunned if the right person (in a so-called democracy) does not present them. Nevertheless I shall answer or comment seriatim on the problems you have listed.
1. “It is not enough to threaten to expel campus agitators.” The most obvious campus agitators are members of the Fourth Estate. I have seen them foment agitation and turn it into world news. They interview anybody on the campus but the students themselves. Cameras are never seen in the classroom, studios, and laboratories. I believe we have one of the greatest systems of education in all history. I believe the state of California is in the forefront, along with both the University and State colleges. I have plenty of collected literature and much direct experience not wanted by the Fourth Estate. I do not stand alone in this.
I have been a campus agitator myself—when the campus agitators were the enrolled students attending classes and studying hard. Unfortunately at this time leadership in campus agitation has been taken away from the students by the channels of communication on one side and revolutionary non-students on the other. These groups and especially the press ignore the age of the so-called agitators. The young are by-passed by the persons who pretend to lead them, but who themselves are not so young.
2. “Law and order.” I am all for law and order so long as they do not mean that the past must have a strangle hold on the present and the future. I do not believe the term “college administrators” is necessarily clear.
3. “It is not enough to threaten educators….” Who is doing the threatening?
4. “It is not enough to threaten our young.” Here I am so much in agreement with you that I can easily be accused of joining the emotionalists as against the thinkers.
5. “It is not too late to seek better ways of communicating between generations…. “ I am doing just that. I am succeeding. I am succeeding by methods which alike are disdained by power-structures both of the prevailing social order and those who are demanding change—meaning they wish to lead.
What I fear is are constant confusion between words and the things or principles which they presumably represent. Dr. S.I. Hayakawa, professionally a literary semanticist drawing his income from the theme that words are not the things they represent, does not hesitate to fail into the very pattern which he verbally execrates when his own ego is involved. If we had to cut the tongues of men who say in one direction and do in another doctors and hospitals would be very busy.
I have merely stated my position here. On the subject of Priority Legislation I am in substantial or absolute agreement with you. It is no doubt encouraging to an official to find a number of his electors are so in accord with him.
Season’s greetings,
Samuel L. Lewis
March 1, 1970
State Senator George R. Moscone
540 Van Moss Ave.
Room 209
San Francisco, Ca. 94102
Dear Senator Moscone:
I have your “A Report to the People” and also a letter dated Feb. 19. On the whole I am quite satisfied with your performance, your reports, and your endeavors. Where we differ—and I do not know whether we differ or not—is on what might be called “the semantic problem.” I believe the world is suffering more from the misuse of words than from any other misuse; that from this stem both the greater and lesser problems of the day, and that at the moment I see no way out, because “solutions” come only from the well-to-do, or from the pressure groups of the not so well-to-do. Both are adept in using the word “science” without any proper referent, and so we are kept in confusion both from objective problems, and subjective confusions brought about by our own attitudes.
One of the greatest disturbances in the world come from Mahatma Gandhi’s coupling of peace and non-violence. He used those words together whether they can be coupled or not with the awful result that today we do not have peace. I believe that peace cannot be coupled with anything. So also, the words hunger and malnutrition are coupled; they are very distinct and I see no way of proving this to non-scientists. I do not believe emotions can solve problems; I never have, and I am very nasty on this point.
Why is it so much pressure is being exerted to study sex in the public schools and none whatever to teach nutrition? I can assure you little children are far more interested in food than they are in sex, and far more effected by diet. This is not to belittle our sexual or social problems; it is to promote an honest, objective program when it comes to stomach feeding, be it of the fortunate or of the unfortunate.
I have lived in many parts of the world and found everywhere malnutrition, and from everywhere our press reporting starvation. And a million facts do not overcome prejudice caused by emotional non-objective reporting. For instance, we have in California all kinds of edible wild plants. There have been books written on the subject, lots of them. I don’t know a single one of them used by editors, commentators, reporters, and if any of them are used on educational TV stations it is a rarity. During the last years I have voluntarily given up eating grapes, but not grape leaves, only it happens to be my own grape leaves. We have abundance of natural foods; even so-called liberals, and this could include yourself, have not always interested themselves in evils of certain kinds of foods. A blind emotionalism has convinced multitudes of ignorant people that tobacco may be causal as to cancer, but is there one major laboratory that has studied the effect of malnutrition with regard to this most virulent disease? To me, malnutrition can be ended by balanced diet, and not by more increase in quantities. Why, even such things as grapes leaves as above, peach leaves, carrot tops, and a multitude of wild plants can be utilized to and some of the disturbances of human kind arising through the digestive tract.
While the economy is supposed to be suffering from a depression of sorts—I am not an economist and do not intend to go into this matter—my own friends are preparing because they have found a rapidly growing market for natural foods. And why not? Once a lady wrote her congressman asking how to rid of weeds, and he wrote back, “Learn to love them, man, learn to love them.” Well I tried this on dandelions and the dandelions soon disappeared (down my stomach), so my health improved without going to any doctor. I tell you Senator, the first thing you must do is to take all mystery away from food and diet and dictation and nutrition can be studied much more easily than can the chemistry of petroleum products or radionics, etc. but we have made it exoteric, and the world suffers. We are polluting our bodies. Pollution is inside of us as well as outside of us.
I once lived in the city of Los Angeles. Campaigns such as yours failed when they run into opposition from the dairy industry. Milk is measured for its butterfat content, not for its mineral content. I tell you Senator, the young who have gone to universities, many of whom are graduates of universities, no longer accept the platitudinous emotions of their elders when it comes to the problems of the day. They want to solve them.
Sure, South Carolina gives lunches, plenty of lunches, and has plenty of malnutrition. I have lived in that state, and I know. Clean milk and non-devitalized foods should be given, and some of them are very cheap. The whole world would benefit if we took our school children around, let them study their natural environment, and learn about the edible plants in our midst—there are still lots of them. I am glad you have used the term “nutritious lunch”; I am all for nutritious lunch, not just for lunch, but for nutritious lunch. And I am all for any program which would produce sound minds in healthful bodies.
Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
March 1, 1970
Assemblyman John L. Burton
State Building
350 McAllister St.
San Francisco, CA 94102
Dear John,
I am taking the opportunity on receiving both reports from you and Senator Moscone at the same time to unload a little and I hope not too much so that you may understand what I am writing about.
By and large, I agree with your position. Where we differ is not so much in opinion or philosophy as in our psychological approaches. Mine is basically scientific, but I do not wish to imply that this word “scientific” has divine sanction. It can become quite de-humanized. A letter from a person of authority becomes more valuable when that person is also amenable to ideas arising from his constituents. I wish to therefor say something about pollution. There are two sorts of pollution besides that of the atmosphere, one being that of the stomach, about which I have already written to your colleague in the upper house (copy enclosed). the other is a sort of pollution of the mind. I gave up direct interest in local politics years ago when called to testify on traffic problems: Brooklyn, Cleveland, and Boston were well-received but as soon as I mentioned the word Los Angeles I was abruptly dismissed. We have retained our traffic problems. Therefor, when it comes to pollution, I hesitate to use the word Pittsburgh lest the same treatment arises, so I leave that to controversial groups wondering when those who clamor the most will become objective in their accumulation of facts.
That is to say, we have two kinds of pollution: the physical pollution of indefinable terms such as “smog” etc., and the mental pollution of giving into wealthy or noisy persons and groups regardless of facts, and this in an age when common scientific knowledge is rather high, and the scientific knowledge in the channels of communication very low indeed.
We cannot stop, or rather we will not stop, agitating commentators from speaking endlessly on subjects on which they are ignorant. In many countries of Europe only scientists are called upon to address the public on scientific problems; many European countries will not think of calling in editors and commentators and permit them to rouse emotions with regard to actual problems. We do not permit non-physicians to prescribe medicines or even to suggest them, but we practically forbid the average citizen, often very well educated, from suggesting solutions in fields on which he may know what he is talking about. And until this is done I think we are going to remain in endless dilemmas. If you go a little deeper you will find that many of the present day campus revolts, if not caused by, are maintained by learned scholars who can no longer stand the ignorance of those controlling channels of communication and making solutions of present day problems almost impossible. Freedom of speech does not permit citizens from prescribing medicines for the sick of body, but freedom of speech gives endless latitude for totally ignorant editors and commentators from filling the air and sound waves with emotions, when knowledge is needed.
And I can assure you, we are not going to end the campus revolts when the well educated graduate is smothered under the noise and emotion of the press, radio, TV, and publications.
I am getting ready to go a world peace conference, and I hope that something more than oratory, emotional rhetoric, and a plethora of thought. I am keeping your brother informed of efforts and potential achievements.
I am opposed to sending any water to Southern California. I am in favor of establishing all the salt water conversion plants possible along our southern coast, giving people and industry what they need without depriving the North of anything.
If there is anything omitted here it is because I thoroughly support the positions you have taken.
Sincerely,
Samuel. L. Lewis
March 22, 1970
Hon. Sam Yorty
City hall
Los Angeles, Calif.
My dear Sam,
For some weeks I have been contemplating writing to you—this quite apart from your announced candidacy. I am about ready to leave to attend a world peace conference at Geneva, Switzerland. Whatever my background, there has been an accumulation of knowledge during the years, but having a point of view which is anathema alike to all schools of dialectics and existentialism, doors have been barred in all directions inside the United States. The great mores of the day is “excitement,” not information or solutions.
I had intended to visit England in 1967 to study pollution and sewage problems. A legal victory had been followed by a celebration ending in ptomaine poisoning. It was quite an experience for an otherwise healthy old codger to be in a hospital. Anyhow, when I came out, the doors opened, making it possible to become a Pied Piper of the young people drawn to psychedelics. One has been most successful in attracting more and more young and beautiful people in manners so out of tune with American culture 1965 to 1970 that you cannot get any publicity. Or rather, not until two weeks hence when suddenly cameras and klieg lights and microphones descended on my private life. O cannot pay any attention to the follow up because of opportunities now in front of one abroad and in new England.
One blends within oneself world outlooks amalgamated with American traditions and philosophies, practically all from New England and Columbia University. None, absolutely none, from Europe, directly or indirectly. And I have met in this world more types of anti-communists, anti-dialecticians, anti-Hegelians, who because they have points of view not in common with diplomats and newspapermen, have been insulted literally and otherwise.
I have been three times in the hands of communists, and do not owe my life to any direct assistance from any foreign office, etc. But I have my diaries. And among my close allies is a man who lives within your city, who was one of the followers of Robert Heinlein in years past and became a top CIA official. Another is the now retired Lt. general Edward Lansdale who had been my personal war hero for private reasons.
Yes there is nothing more offensive than being an eye-witness, and you can be pretty sure that it is useless to write articles. A veteran of both the San Francisco and Santa Barbara earthquakes, I have been unwittingly, quite unwittingly, an eye-witness of the disturbances on the Berkeley campus and San Francisco State college. Personally, I think we have the most marvelous educational system that has ever been devised my man. Outsiders, not only communists, but anti-communist dialecticians, have joined together to try and put pressures on, and everything they do is first communicated to the press and TV networks, and the cameras are there when they start jumping. It is droll or vicious according to one’s point of view. But so long as we live in a world dedicated to “excitement” we are going to have it.
The control of the channels of communication by the commentators, the sociologists and the literati makes calm solutions of the problems of the day almost impossible. Personality, not knowledge, is what counts. But I am still optimistic enough to believe we have within the confines of these United States not only the keys to solutions, but even the solutions themselves to many of our present day problems and pseudo-problems. If by any chance I am successful in my international ventures I shall communicate further. If not I shall keep mum.
Cordially,
Samuel L. Lewis
April 26, 1970
State Senator George R. Moscone
5110 Van Ness Ave., Room 209 San Francisco 94102
My dear Senator Moscone:
After an absence of a month, I have returned from abroad and find your very interesting letter with enclosure, dated March 31. My main mission abroad was to work for living world peace with benefit of clergy, actually. But free from all the stupid editorials and emotional bombasts from over-verbalized diplomats and editorial writers, who are in control of the American form of brainwashing. For it was also evident that in trying to solve problems of war and peace we must face food problems.
I have done considerable research in this field and present indications are that I may be so released from worldly burdens as to devote the rest of my life to the solution both of the war-peace and food, problems. I can assure you Senator, that there is very little starvation in this world; there is an overwhelming amount of malnutrition, too often reported by blatant ignorant newspapermen and UN officials as starvation, when it is almost totally malnutrition.
I agree with you heartily that we most terminate malnutrition, but if we are going to continue our programs of offering denaturalized white breads and Cola drinks to the young, we are going to add to our problem. It is already becoming better known that the number of ulcers in the young is rapidly increasing, and they are not going to be diminished by any pompous editorials from television networks or famous columnists. We need natural foods. The young are being involved more and more in these natural food crusades. When we get these natural foods, malnutrition will automatically diminish.
I agree with you whole-heartedly about the lunches for children. I never suffered from malnutrition because I was born in this state at a time when we had a vast surplus of fresh fruits. I believe malnutrition problems can be solved not only with increased milk consumption for children, but also by giving them from our surpluses of fresh fruits and vegetables. Bu if we are going to make newspaper-science superior to laboratory-science we are merely going from one difficulty to another.
The recent Earth Day celebration was an example. The appropriation of the word ecology, and the misinterpretations put upon it by columnists and sociologists is going to get us into further difficulty. Yes, food for the children. Yes, free lunches for the children. But also honest wholesome nourishment, nowhere more easily obtained than in this our state of California.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis