772 Clementina St.
San Francisco 3, Calif.
April 28, 1959
Alfred Frankenstein,
c/o S.F. Chronicle,
San Francisco 3, Calif.
Dear Mr. Frankenstein:
We have met but once and that was many years ago. Still I have been an avid reader of all your articles and perhaps have been much influenced by them. I have learned to have an appreciation of the arts, East and West, Ancient, Medieval, Recent and Contemporary—and to enjoy them all though with changing ideas.
Today I am convinced that the two centers of Esthetic culture for this world are, or are going to be Hyderabad in Decant, India; and San Francisco. The story of Hyderabad is a long one about which for the moment I seem to have too much information and the rest of the world too little, to go into any consideration here. But the story of San Francisco is different for I am descended from pioneers and my roots are deep in this city and state.
In 1930 I visited the East Coast for the first time. If it had not been for my acquaintanceship with Rudolph Schaeffer I doubt if I could have understood what was going on in architecture and in the art galleries of New York City, and other places. Later on I came to understand why the late and perhaps very great Lloyd Wright, who has been regarded as an irascible person, thought so highly of Mr. Schaeffer and his school.
In 1956 I took a trip to the Orient and did see Mr. Wright’s hotel in Tokyo; but the education and art appreciation received from Mr. Schaeffer’s school opened up a lot of doors for me that are not open to those who travel with Mr. Obata. (I think I can safely make this remark because I was first a pupil and then a friend of the late Prof. Perham Nahl who introduced Obata-san here.)
I am not going into details concerning my trip which covered not only the usual, but such rather closed places as the Imperial Gardens in Tokyo, the Royal Places in Bangkok and social gifts from the Burmese because of my knowledge of far Eastern arts, etc.—not to forget Hyderabad mentioned above.
Now the experience of one man can be the experience of many men, and women, and perhaps has been. But Mr. Schaeffer toddles on, occasionally honored, as he has been, by the businessmen of the community; occasionally flattered and even more occasionally ignored.
It was not so long that Mercedes McCambridge had a radio series in which one of the characters was based on Mr. Schaeffer and the unfortunate circumstances are compelling him to move from Telegraph hill to new quarters.
This move may be a boon, a blessing or a curse, not so much as to what happens to Mr. Schaeffer and his school, but what happens to San Francisco. We are a city of several museums and art galleries, some of them quite progressive. In all they tend to show a high degree of culture, art appreciation and creative activity. But the rewards, if any, that go to artists and craftsmen, follow the age-old pattern or encomiums and even money to the heirs of the great, especially to the heirs of the great in distant lands.
So far as music is concerned I think San Francisco has re-directed its efforts to assist the living, performers and composers both and this pattern is to me excellent and a standard which the whole world might emulate. It therefore suggests first of all that San Francisco should be done for the fine Arts in the broadest sense of the term.
The Alumni of Mr. Schaeffer’s school (of which I am one) feel called upon to arouse civic interest in the school and its appendages, such as the East-West Art Gallery—so that funds may be raised in some manner, not to provide Mr. Schaeffer with a comfortable livelihood— but to promote this school as a permanent institution so that its ideas, ideals and contributions may continued onwards in the generations to come.
Like most artist and artistically inclined people we are not so commercial that we know how to tap the tills and approach the coffers which may be willing to corporate to the same end, to the glory both of Art and San Francisco as a city of culture.
One can only hope that men like you, who although you may not be able to contribute financially, may express some interest and rouse still further interest that those who can and would contribute may know both about the pressing needs of the school and the still more pressing need and opportunity for San Francisco to grow as the Athens of the West, not merely in editorials but in living facts.
Thanking you for your patience in reading this, I remain
Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis
58 Harriet St.,
San Francisco 3, Calif.,
October 2, 1963
To the Editor
“The Chronicle,”
San Francisco, Calif.
Sir:
I must protest and protest in no uncertain terms against that stupid nonsense labeled “Blue Monday” with the subtitle—“New Delhi is Talking About”— which probably refers to fellow newsmen at some cocktail party in at least ten of the large cities of the globe.
The bus systems in both Bombay and New Delhi stand out as remarkably efficient in all respects—something which is not true, incidentally, of many of the other aspects of travel in that country, which one is pretty sure your Jane Quilter knows nothing about through experience.
As to taxis “turning off ignition at every stop light to save gas” that is a downright falsehood, and this is the least of it. Last year alone I took the taxi at least one dozen times to and from our beautiful embassy in New Delhi, and it never happened once. And come to think of it, hardly any of the drivers were Sikhs either, although I have also, on other routes often had Sikh drivers.
As to the rest of the stupid communication, how many camels did Jane Quilter actually see in the big cities of India; or where the traffic is heavy? And how many motor cars in the small towns and villages where bullocks abound?
Oh well, what’s the use. We have a lot of wars and near wars in Asia because pseudo-reports of newspaper people have been preferred to honest statements of honest Americans who have lived among the people.
Honestly (which newsmen don’t understand),
Samuel L. Lewis
cc— Indian Consulate
cc— Tourist Bureau of India.
January 24, 1970
Mr. Lester Kinsolver
Religion Correspondent
San Francisco Chronicle
Sam Francisco, CA 94119
Dear Mr. Kinsolver,
Your article “Church’s Failure with Teenagers” is sadly amusing. You yourself quote Father Andrew Greeley: “There really isn’t a generation gap in the United States”; the so-called gap” is largely a fiction created by journalists and TV commentators so they have something to worry adults about, or to pontificate on when they make their nightly descent from Mt. Sinai…. Like most writers, you yourself probably are not mingling with the young. It is certain that my theme, which has been offered many times—to the young of course—has been “the lamb and the lion shall lie together and a little child shall lead them”—the hell he will. Whether we agree or disagree otherwise we have made it our business to see that the little child does not lead them.
I myself have been teaching for some years at “The Church of Mans” 20 Steiner Street whose founder-leader is Rev. Earl Blighton.
He started with six young people; his followers run into the hundreds today, rapidly growing. His religion, if you want to call it that, is based on definite teachings of not about Jesus Christ.
I have just started my fourth class on The Gospel of Saith Thomas. There it seems Jesus taught that the Kingdom of Heaven definitively is in and with the young, the very young. We oldsters don’t accept it, like we won’t accept a lot of other teachings by Jesus Christ and the Bible. The young are charmed, entranced.
The whole dualism is based on the supposition both that man is a soul, and is not a soul. You can’t have it both ways. Oldsters want it both ways. The young are very honest here. All we need is honesty and objectivity. I don’t want to comment further. Facts often prove “experts” are wrong. Sooner or later we have to accept that. Sooner or later we have to accept that there can be religion based on human experience rather than on sermons and dialogues of vested persons or vested interests.
Elsewhere, I am attracting many young people who seek knowledge of other religions. But we all worship together, we all love each other. Very few older people have this conception of love—all they think of is sex or infatuation. That is not what Christ meant. I leave off in mid air.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis
March 25, 1970
Mr. Lester Kinsolver
Religion Correspondent
San Francisco Chronicle
Sam Francisco, CA 94119
Dear Mr. Kinsolver,
I have a most delightful letter from you. I don’t know whether you are criticizing me or Jesus Christ; to put me in this category is indeed an honor. Where I differ from many traditional religionists, no doubt, is that I lean over to accept any words and teachings which presumably emanate from Jesus Christ. Some of these are in the Gospel of Thomas. I certainly do not request that others take this as a scripture.
I do not know how well acquainted you are with my favorite American author, Mark Twain, nor do I requests that other people also admire him, but in his “Captain Stornfield’s Visit to Heaven” consciously or unconsciously he give a key to maintaining any age, and I mean just that, any age. I certainly do not believe that the kingdom of heaven is with any group or race or class or religion or cult or any man-made analytical division of human kind. When a dramatist or writer produces “The Young at Heart” it is just thrilling; when an older person tries to live that way he is out of step with those who wish to lead parades.
As to my age, I am a veteran not only of the Santa Barbara earthquake, but the San Francisco earthquake! I am living at the bottom of Bernal Heights where even before the earthquake and fire they said to me “Go fly a kite,” and I did. Also I have been writing: “My efforts to become a Pied Piper have failed miserably; only the young show up.”
I cannot tell everything new to anybody that doesn’t want to learn. I am about ready to leave this city to attend a conference of the religions of the world, great and not so great religions. In one sense I carry credentials of different outlooks which the scribes and Pharisees say are in conflict with each other. But I am American enough to accept Walt Whitman’s “In all men I see myself.” I am not trying, or rather, I have not tried, to reach the press about this conference of the world’s religions. No doubt it is not exciting enough to be news. There are plenty of passages in the New Testament where emphasis is made on loud ears and soft tongues. But Tibetan Buddhism goes even further with the Saint Milarepa who is pictured having his hands up to his ears. Yet it maybe wring also to try and impose this or anything on anybody, when one is working for the cause of peace.
I am in utter revolt against our present culture, and every sort of dialectic, whether it comes from Karl Marx or Hegel or the Hegelians or all those who establish premises based on their own speculations and not on experiences of themselves or others. I am a dotard enough to have accepted the words of the great Clemenceau: “War and peace are two things too serious to entrust to diplomats and generals.” But whether we are communists or anti-communists, or ant-anti, we seem to be more bound by dialectics than by either Clemenceau or wisdom. So I am joining in those who are giving a try to having some sort of peace, not dominated by diplomats and generals. It seem curious to me to be considered suspect if you follow Clemenceau, and quite proper if you have the “right” dialectics.
I am an old vet at being barred at “peace conferences.” Once I got kicked off the Berkeley campus for proposing they should have a Chinese speaker at a conference on China. They did permit a British communist to speak. I am not against letting communists speak, but I am all for letting Chinese speak on China, and Vietnamese on Vietnam,, and Laotians, if we can find them, to speak on their country. Alas, too many “experts” in the way.
We have just complete a seminar on Southeast Asia. The professors and nearly every enrolled student have lived in one or more countries of Southeast Asia. In other words, we were all “ugly Americans.”
Well, I am not only ready to leave for Geneva, I have before me cameras and lights and tied up with sound equipment, which might, just might, show objectively some of the work I am doing. Scientists demand objectivity; the law usually seek it; elsewhere?!?!
One of your colleagues on the Chronicle has written: “The trouble with pragmatism is that it doesn’t work.” I think this is an excellent reflection of the culture against which I am protesting, and I do not think in vain.
Sincerely,
Samuel L. Lewis.
P.S. If you ever came to my classes you should see that I am trying to “pragmatize” love, joy, and peace. I think this can be done. A growing number of young people think it can be done. It has to become man’s experience, not his verbalisms, and I also wish you love and joy and peace.
September 2, 1970
Foreign Editor
The Chronicle
Dear Sir:
God help the eye witness in foreign affairs. My best friend Robert Clifton died of a broken heart. He lived many years in Vietnam and was turned down by about everybody. That is not the unusual. That is the usual.
My very good friend Julie Medlock, herself a newspaper woman and widow of a Hearst editor, retired in chagrin and lives in India. All her eye witness reports were accepted in Asian newspapers, despite her background and credentials she was everywhere given the brush-off from the publications of this land and this is the usual.
Once I had a traveling companion. He was a U.N. official. He told me he thought my program for the Middle East was the most sensible he had over encountered. He said his name was Gunnar Jarring. So I thought some American peace groups would listen. Not a chance! You name them, they turned me down.
This is the whole history of my life, but now I have found a man, an editor, who wants everything, i.e., that is everything real, and he will get it.
This year I went to a peace conference held in Geneva under the auspices of the American Temple of understanding at Washington. Half humorously I told them I was an incarnation of blessing “Nathan the Wise.” The real religious leaders of the real world took this seriously. A lot of young people took it seriously, and they are doing what I merely talked about.
We are having a joint Arab-Israeli-Islamic-Jewish-Christian dinners and prayers and dancing. We have even got some radio and TV stations interested. Remember my friends, that in foreign affairs, the opinions of big people are always more important than the verbal reports of little people. But the young differ—this is the generation gap, the between those who accept experience and those who accept reactions to experience.
Faithfully
Samuel L. Lewis
Sept. 24, 1970
Editors
The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs:
As my name has been mentioned in today’s paper in an article by Michael Grieg, I am writing to you thank you for even being mentioned. Achievement of local people and even local corporations are not necessarily “news.” Mr. Grieg decided I have a chip on my shoulder; you bet I have, and I am very proud of it. I belong to a class of citizens who accept reality not “realism”; facts not fancies. You can read some of my remarks in the copy of the letter enclosed to the Christian Science Monitor, which at least gave me an interview.
Mr. Grieg calls me a Guru. It is he, without any evidence, that mentions “Gurus putting each other down.” This is newspaper reporting of the same order as recently occurred in the contact over the development of sections of San Francisco near the Ferry Building. If I am a Guru it is because the Mr. Griegs of the world have so labeled me. I was publicly ordained as a Sufi Murshid in Pakistan by spiritual leaders of Dervish orders. I have never been acclaimed as an authority on Asia by any of our “only in America” experts on Asia, but I am one of the few fellows of The Royal Asiatic Society in this vicinity.
Yes, I am one of a very large number of American citizens who have had the impertinence to be eye-witnesses of historical events in Asia or dramas on the campuses of the Universities in this land. The way to fame is easy. Become a communist, pull a stunt, and your name is in the paper, and you are on your way. But turn a mob against communists and save the communists’ lives at the same time, that may be history, but it certainly is not news.
I did have one argument in Golden Gate Park, but it was in defense of the Guru Yogi Bhajan. He represents the outlook that realities and actions are important and words of themselves mean little. I not only agree with him, but admire his pragmatic anti-dialectic approach. I am hoping the future generations in America will return to American pragmatics and get rid of all European dialectics and the pseudo-geometry of philosophies based on the way delegates sat after their revolution in 1789.
I think there is enough news in the copies of letters enclosed. I was a delegate to a conference of leaders of the religions of the world which took place earlier this year at Geneva. Apparently the real religious leaders have a different view. My secretary Mansur Otis Johnson and I were the only person invited to sit down and sup with leaders of every single religion. Mr. Johnson is a friend and colleague of Dr. Huston Smith of M.I.T., and is very poor in dialectics and sociology. He is now employed in technical work of films, both of my own endeavors, these of my colleagues in this country, and my associates in many parts of Asia. We are hoping to show these films to the American Society for Eastern Arts.
I am leaving shortly for New York to promote “Dances of Universal Peace,” Israeli-Christian-Arab dinners, and collaboration with a well-known Jesuit editor, my colleague Father Haughey. Totally illogical and totally true. And the results are going to be published in another state.
When I return I am going to ask The Chamber of Commerce whether something cannot be done in our culture to publicize the achievements of American industrialists alongside the plans of communists. The University of California especially has stupendous and marvelous achievements which are not considered newsworthy.
I understand the Oakland Tribune is new recognizing our work so will not say any more. To some, bringing Israelis-Arabs-Jews together to dance, eat, and pray together, is news.
Faithfully,
Samuel L. Lewis