One would think that there would be no aesthetic considerations in time of war. When your country has been overrun by fascists, when bombs are destroying churches and museums around the world, when virtually every country on the globe is engaged in combat, a man has to ask himself, of what importance is literature? For what purpose does art exist? (pause) Hmm. (pause) These are legitimate questions to ask. These are questions that men of letters ask themselves in times of peace. In times of war they must still be asked. Oddly enough the universities are still open and these questions take on even greater meaning. Men of intelligence look at the world around them and ask questions such as “What good is art when my brother has been killed?” They are difficult questions.
It is interesting to me that the questions are still asked, even as one’s own life hangs in the balance. For me, questions of art took on more meaning during the war, not less. I must admit that surprised me.
I should explain, my life has been consumed with aesthetics, with the study of literature and philosophy, from the ancients onward. Early on it became my life’s work. To give you an example, my published works include volumes on Machiavelli, Shakespeare, Coleridge, to name a few—my interests do span the centuries—all the way from Plato to Bacon to Croce. Are you familiar with Croce? Benedetto Croce, an Italian. He was a brilliant thinker, perhaps the best known of all Italian critics. He proposed that there were two ways to approach knowledge. The first was by understanding, as through the objective realm of science, and the second was by imagination, as in the arts. Science deals with objective things, like classification, whereas art approaches knowing through feeling and by sharing that feeling, those emotions, through presentation, the work of art itself.
(Pause)
I’m sorry. I’m sure you didn’t come here to listen to a lecture. Any classroom will do for that. You’re likely far more interested in my adventures with the Underground during the war. But I must tell you honestly it was hardly an adventure to me. It was simply a duty. After I moved to Wisconsin my friends at the university were intrigued, and I think a bit doubtful of the truth, when they first discovered that I was a member of the Italian Resistance movement. And I can understand that. It was not my life’s calling. I was not born to be a spy. You wouldn’t guess me to be a spy. But in times of crisis men do what they have to do. I was a lifelong opponent of fascism and I felt it necessary to join the battle. To be truthful I would rather have been writing another book on the organic unity of literary criticism or some such thing, a little study of Tennyson or Milton. That was my idea of adventure, struggling with words, not battling with weapons, unearthing messages from the ancient philosophers rather than carrying notes for the Resistance. Yet it was what I did. It was what I had to do. It was my contribution.
Looking back now I suppose it was dangerous work, though you didn’t dare think too much about that. If a man were caught working for the Underground he could face death as a traitor or at the very least, imprisonment, possibly torture. As I said you couldn’t think about that. You would hear rumors, especially about the tortures . . . you put it out of your mind. For me, I couldn’t imagine a worse torture than the burning of books or the banning of literature, the elimination of free discussion, all of which occurred at that time. It was not the world in which I wanted to live. It was necessary to fight against it. I would fight it again if I could.
I know it’s hard to understand, especially for those in America today, because this country has been so free for so long. Most Americans have no concept of what it truly means to live in a totalitarian state. What we were fighting was very real, and once you have lived through it you never want to be subjected to it or subjugated by it again. Fascism is the total loss of independence, of freedom. Total, utter, absolute. I don’t know how else to say it.
I’ll get off my soapbox.
But I must tell you under a totalitarian regime there is simply no freedom left. People are not free to move about without fear of questioning by the authorities. People are not free to speak their minds without fear that their words might be heard by other ears. People’s lives are controlled by the government. The media are controlled by the government. There is no freedom left, not a whit. How could this happen, you may wonder. Well, it happens in pieces, but by design. It happens when the people are scared and tired and they give up in every sense. They give up control, they give up power, they give up hope, and before they know it the leaders they elected to protect them have now enslaved them. They have given up everything.
The horrifying irony is that their enslavement is by choice—unwitting perhaps, but a choice nonetheless—or perhaps a series of choices. It is done willingly, if you can believe that, at least at the beginning. The people willingly give up their freedom, usually out of fear, usually after a threat is presented by the government and an appeal is made to national pride and unity. The people elect whatever savior utters the best of promises. The people of Germany voted for Hitler. They thought he was a savior. They gave him power and he gave them fear. This is what happens. Then some event comes along that terrifies and unites the people and triggers a call for military buildup which is heard around the nation. The people rally around the flag and the symbols of government and forget what the symbols stood for in the first place. Anyone who speaks up against the loss of civil liberties or the treatment of certain classes of people is ostracized or imprisoned. Fascism is inherently anti-intellectual. Those who think are a danger to the government. As a student of philosophy it was imperative that I fought it. As I said I would fight it again if I could.
I’m sorry. I’m sure you didn’t come here to get a lecture on fascism either. But it is important to know these things, as simplistic as that explanation may seem. The lessons of history should not be too easily forgotten.
As I had started to say what I did during the war was not so much of an adventure. I was a courier for the Underground, which meant that I carried messages back and forth to other people who acted upon them. It was not much, maybe, but it was needed. I did what I could. At the time I taught English language and literature at the universities at Florence and at Milan, so I was free to travel between the two without arousing suspicion. During the Nazi occupation I worked for the Committee of National Liberation. When the Americans came in I assisted with teaching G. I.’s at the university at Florence. I did what I could to save my country. My great uncle fought for Italian liberation under the great Garibaldi. Who was I to let Mussolini and Hitler and their thugs destroy what had been won?
So, if carrying messages was an adventure, then an adventurer I was. If acting as a liaison between the intelligentsia and the Resistance was heroic, then a hero I was. But I will tell you that most of my heroes and most of the adventures I loved were in books. I don’t think of myself as a hero. I would rather be remembered for just one of my books than for carrying a hundred messages from Florence to Milan. I would rather be remembered as a Professor than as a Count. I would rather be remembered as a man of ideas than a man of action.
The things that were important to me in life were those very ideas and their artistic expression. As I said it was my life-long work to study literature, criticism, and aesthetics. What I came to realize early on and what I tried to communicate throughout my life was that art has its own form. Each work is organic. Each poem, each piece of art, comes from within itself, from its own demands, rather than from demands outside of it. These are the possibilities that fascinated me. These are the studies I went back to after the war was over. In retrospect it was amazing how soon life returned to normal. It did not take long after the war before the sun set on it and the memory of all the soldiers melted into shadow. The sound of the tanks and airplanes became whispers in the distance. Then freedom entered the lungs with every breath taken and oppression was pushed away with every exhalation.
Still, no experience leaves you forever. I can never forget the horror of the fascist government. I cannot bear to think of it happening again. If I could I would fight it again and this time leave the poetry to the children.
(Note: This character should improvise throughout this piece, wherever it feels appropriate to interact with the audience in a way that is consistent with the Uncle Sam character which he portrayed for so many years)
(Pointing) I want you . . . to be patriotic. I want you . . . to be good citizens. I want you . . . to love this country as much as you love anything. Do you? Are you an American patriot? Uncle Sam sure hopes so!
Wait a minute. I suppose I should introduce myself. I am Uncle Sam.
Is there anyone here who doesn't know who Uncle Sam is? Anyone? I thought not. He is one of the most recognizable characters in history. But let me tell you a few things you might not know about him. Did you know that the idea of Uncle Sam started as an insult? It did, it's true, sort of the way that cheesehead started as an insult to Wisconsinites, but it was turned around and made a symbol of pride. Sam Wilson stamped the letters U. S. on salted meat that was shipped to the Army during the War of 1812. Some say he was a meat packer who was supplying troops with meat, others that he was an Army meat inspector. Nobody knows. But we do know his name was Sam and that he stamped U S. in big letters on the barrels of meat. So British sympathizers took to referring to the government as Uncle Sam.
True Americans, though, said Sam Wilson, and Uncle Sam by extension, was a man of fairness, honesty, reliability, and devotion to the country he loved. These are the qualities of true patriots. So Uncle Sam was adopted as a symbol of everything that is good about our great country. He stands for the patriot in us all. He represents several hundred million patriots, that's the Uncle Sam I portray. The Uncle Sam I portray is dedicated to flag and country.
Who can recite the Pledge of Allegiance? When I was younger we did that in school every day and nobody had any problems with it. Now you can't even say it in a lot of places. But the pledge isn't just to the cloth, the Stars and Stripes, it's a pledge to everything that the flag stands for. Listen. I'm going to recite it. Really listen to it. Recite along if you want to. I know you know it.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America; and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
You see, it says right in there "and to the Republic for which it stands". You're pledging allegiance to the flag because it represents something true and good, not just out of blind obedience, not just because you're following the crowd, not just to a meaningless piece of cloth, but because it means something. And you're pledging allegiance to a Republic that provides "liberty and justice for all." Do you hear that? Liberty and justice. These are noble aims, liberty and justice, and our Republic strives to give them to all. That means to every citizen. It doesn't matter if you're black or white, old or young; if you are a citizen you are promised liberty and justice. A country that has that as its goal, and that succeeds in reaching that goal, deserves to be loved. That is all that patriotism is—love of country—and the willingness to express that love and to die for the ideals.
I believe that patriotism, true patriotism, is something that has to grow on you; it can't just come all at once. I think by dressing up as Uncle Sam I help children identify with their country. But you have to truly understand what the country means, you have to truly understand how different this country is from any country that ever came before it, how free we are here compared to any country in the history of the world. This is what I try to teach when I appear in parades and at other events.
By the way, I am not the original Uncle Sam—I'm not that old—but I borrowed his clothes and portrayed him for two and half decades, in parades and memorial services from coast to coast. I visited 49 state capitals in that time, marched in hundreds of parades, and passed out thousands upon thousands of flags to children who came to see me. I marched in the national American Legion convention parade every year for 25 years, in the Madison and Monona Memorial Day parades for 25 years, in the Syttende Mai parade for 25 years, and I got to march in five Presidential inauguration parades. Every time I marched I passed out flags to the children. I wanted them to start young with love of country. I learned that they would hold onto those flags, too, because they got them from Uncle Sam. I've had many a person tell me that over the years, that they still had the flag they received from Uncle Sam as a child.
The American flag and the image of Uncle Sam, the bald eagle, the Statue of Liberty, these things, I think, have more meaning to veterans than they do to most people. This is not to say that others cannot feel pride, but I think service to your country gives you a greater appreciation of what your country means. I served my country, as did most of the people around my age. My generation came of age during the Second World War—I was with the Army Air Force Signal Corps—and I learned a greater appreciation for the freedom that we have here in this country because of that service. Never underestimate how free you are and how important that is. Once you've seen that in other countries they are not free the way we are here in America then you begin to truly value the freedom we have. I want you to have that appreciation.
Maybe you think I'm old-fashioned, being proud to be an American, but I'd rather be proud and old-fashioned than to be in fashion under a dictator. That is no way to live. This country has given shelter to people who were persecuted for religion, to people who were starving to death in their home country and escaped to the land of plenty, to people who were political outcasts because they wanted to be free in countries where the word didn't even really exist. Lady Liberty welcomes all of them to her shores. She holds that lantern high like a beacon to guide the homeless home, to bring the children of persecution into her family, to mix them all up in the melting pot that is America and to give them a chance to live and die in freedom.
I believe we owe her our love and respect. That is what patriotism means to me. That is what I think of when I see the flag waving proudly in the sky. That is why I do what I do.
You may think I'm quaint, old-fashioned, naïve, I'm not sure. I don't care. I believe that I am right. I believe that this is the greatest country that ever existed, and I will do everything I can to help others understand that. I will do everything I can to make sure she stays that way. I want you . . . to join me.
I don't always talk to people about the Second World War, but I was asked to do this, so I said I would. I'm doing this for my buddies, for all of the men and women who served in this war. But I was just one of many boys from the Greenbush who served their country overseas. Our neighborhood did its duty for the war, as much or more than any other. I was one. There were others. Scalissi was one, John Scalissi. We were buddies from the neighborhood and we went in together and stayed together through training and assignment until . . . until, I . . .
Well, I was 20 when I joined. My parents raised me well. I recognized my duty to God and family and country, so I joined. I was just a kid. I didn't know what might lie ahead. Once, when I was 14, I drove the family car to Chicago and back. Took my two brothers and sister with me. My father trusted me that much. I never wanted to let him down. But I didn't know what was ahead on those roads, what was around the next curve. You can't know if you haven't been on the road before, you know? You just have to trust it'll take you where you're tryin' to go. So, when I joined up I didn't know what to expect there either. I figured I'd be sent to Europe, maybe even to the front, but what does that mean to a 20-year old kid?
Scalissi and me, we both got sent to Fort Jackson, then to Indiana, and we both became Platoon Sergeants. I don't mind telling ya I had the best platoon in the world. Scalissi's was good—Scalissi was good—but he scared the hell out of his men. They didn't dare give him trouble. I swear, his wake-up call every morning woke everyone within a few miles, and that probably includes dogs, cats, and birds. So I'd always say to my men, I'd tell them, you'd best do right by me or you're going over to Scalissi's group. I got full cooperation. What I didn't tell them was that I would trust Scalissi with my life and that if I had to serve under anyone it would've been him.
So anyway things kept getting worse overseas. We both got orders in the fall of '44 to ship out. I was in the 28th in Belgium, the Battle of the Bulge. It was a shock to me. Here I was a Platoon Sergeant back in Indiana one day, then I'm sent off to Europe and within what seems like hours I'm in the middle of one of the toughest battles in the history of warfare.
The first day of it started okay. I captured three Germans. I guess my mistake was in going for more. With one other man I volunteered for a second mission and ended up surrounded by German troops. There were just the two of us—thank God we were warmly dressed—and we had to lay on the ground and try to stay hidden while they searched for us. They knew we were there. They just didn't know where. It was early morning when they finally found us, something like 2 a.m., after passing by the spot where we were and then circling back.
I took a chance I probably shouldn't have. Pointing weapons at us the Germans ordered us to turn over our weapons and first aid kits, which we did. For the most part. See, I had two grenades strapped to my stomach and I thought well, maybe these can help us escape at some point, so I kept them. But they started us marching across a mine field and I guess they thought we would know where the mines were hidden and guide them through or at least be the ones blown apart if we didn't. It occurred to me that if a mine exploded nearby the grenades might not be the best thing to have around my waist—I thought they might explode, too—so I peeled them off and dropped them as we went through that mine field. Luckily it went unnoticed. I could've been killed if they had found that I hadn't turned over all my weapons.
I had a letter in my pocket, too, so I shredded it as we went, figuring that it might lead someone to us, sort of like Hansel and Gretel dropping bread crumbs in the forest. It didn't help any more than their bread crumbs. We were captured and we stayed captured until the war ended.
When you become a P. O. W. the enemy can take whatever cash and jewels you have as long as they give you a receipt for it, so I had to give up my $35 in cash that I had on me. I had a ring that was given to me by my wife, Marge, and I just couldn't part with it. It was a cameo and I knew they weren't going to let me keep something like that, from my wife or not, but I could see they did let people keep their wedding rings. So I turned it around on my finger to make it look just like a wedding band and I got away with it. The other thing was I had a lucky coin that my father had given me. It was hidden in my waistband and I just couldn't part with that either, so I didn't tell them about it and lucky for me they didn't find it. I guess that was crazy because they would execute prisoners who they found with money after they first searched for it. I was 20. You take chances at 20 that you might not take later in life. I did hide it better in the heel of my shoe that night, though, and it stayed there until the war was over. These two things were a connection to my loved ones and they helped sustain me in moments of doubt.
I didn't know what to expect as a prisoner of war. There's no amount of training that can prepare you for something like that. Some guards were brutal, others were not. Some camps fed you okay, others did not. I started in a camp near Limburg, Germany and was later moved to one where we lived on a piece of bread a day and a little bit of tea. The conversation there was always about food. Men didn't talk about women, about the war, nothing but food. They planned menus, they described five course meals in minute detail. It was probably the worst thing we could do, but you couldn't help it when you were hungry. It was simply the natural topic. Mostly the camps were hard work, followed by boredom, and it all blurred together after awhile. There are some things that stand out that you never forget, shrapnel of memory I guess you could call it.
I remember one night watching two young Germans, my age I guess, shooting at anything that moved. They were on duty standing in the open outside a foxhole with no protection. I guess they were nervous, so they just pulled their triggers at the direction of any noise. If their mothers had come by they would have been shot. Another time I recall being lined up in a row in a barn—I thought we were all going to be shot—and then some German guard sat there and excitedly told us his war stories. He just wanted an audience and I made sure I listened attentively. I remember a German soldier we called Schmucklegooberby. We had all sorts of funny nicknames for them. I don't know who came up with that one, but I thought it was funny. You had to take your humor where you could get it in a camp like that. Anyway, Schmucklegooberby was quite a character. He was no more than four feet in height, with bowlegged feet fitted into big black boots. He carried a whip that was longer than he was tall and he was deadly accurate with it. Anyone who got out of line felt its snap. God forgive anyone he may have ever heard call him by his nickname. (Smiling) Schmucklegooberby. It still makes me smile to hear it, one of the few things about that time.
(Pause)
I was almost executed once. I won't say I wasn't scared or that I didn't think of my sins, that I didn't pray. I did. When you're facing death you don't take chances. What happened was that one of the prisoners had cut up a conveyor belt and the Krauts didn't know who did it. Common practice was soldiers would be selected at random to be executed unless the culprit was identified. Fortunately for me and a couple dozen others who were chosen, and I guess not so much for him, the guy was identified and we were spared. Sometimes the offender admitted his guilt to spare his fellows. I don't know if they found out or he admitted it, but I was thankful for the reprieve.
I was spared again at the end of the war, somehow . . . barely. Those last couple months were the worst of it. I was part of the Death March—you may have heard of it—when prisoners were forced to march 25 miles or more a day, all the way across Belgium, Germany, Poland, Denmark, to the Baltic. This way the Germans didn't have to shoot us. We died naturally from starvation or exhaustion or both. Thankfully I was only 21 by that time or I might have died.
There were boxcars of prisoners, too, but they were packed so tight nobody could move, even to relieve themselves. As hard as it was I chose to walk. Along the way, when we marched through German villages and cities, the women and old men jeered, cursed and spat at us. Some threw stones. I lost . . . most of it on that march . . . I lost something like 80 pounds. I went from 175 pounds at my capture to under 100 less than half a year later. I lost about half my weight. I don't know how I survived or why, but I made it through. If the war hadn't ended when it did . . . I must admit I still get angry when I hear about how well German prisoners in America were treated. But I have to keep in mind we were fighting for the kind of country that has always stood for that kind of fairness and equal treatment. I guess, if I think about it, I would join that fight again. I bet Scalissi would, too.
My life was full just as the bellies of those around me were full, and when you’re a chef those tend to be full. Little did I know when I was growing up on a farm in Arkansas where my life would take me. When you are the third of ten children and you are hard at work on the farm you don’t think about it. You think about the immediate chore in front of you. You don’t plan on the little things that might happen that will take you in different directions.
It was not my plan, but I became a chef. Before that, though, I had more jobs in my life than there are ingredients in a recipe. I started as a schoolteacher. I had graduated from high school in two years while going part-time when there wasn’t farm work. That meant about two to four months a year that I could attend. I later became a teacher at the same school. But for a reason that I never fully understood schoolteachers are not well paid in this country. A man couldn’t support himself, let alone think about a family, on what was offered back then. So I left the profession to go into construction, which at least paid a decent wage. I was at various times a farmer, a teacher, a hod carrier, a sharecropper, a dishwasher, a writer, a radio and television host, and, as I mentioned, a chef.
When I was younger I took a job as a dishwasher. Many of my friends told me that the job was beneath me—I had been a schoolteacher—and that I should not take it, that I should not lower myself to working in a hash-house. To my mind it was work—it paid $9.00 a week—and every job has its dignity. I swallowed my pride and took the job with a shrug and a smile and it changed my entire life.
One day I was washing dishes and the cook quit. He walked out in the middle of his shift. The boss called to me, he told me to get my hands out of the dirty water and try my hand at cooking. I finished the shift and took over the job, at considerably better pay, and my career took off from there. A couple of times over the next several months I received raises for my work, but my friends were right, I didn’t want to stay in a hash-house.
I enjoyed cooking and wanted to learn more. I left the job to study the art of cooking. I went to restaurants all over the United States, in hotels, railroad dining cars, resorts, anywhere I could find good food. I have always believed that whatever you do, whether in cooking or anything else, to do a good and rewarding job you must strive constantly for perfection. Though perfection is seldom attained, this constant striving is what lifts the individual from mediocrity to the level of outstanding accomplishment. When I taught these were the kinds of lessons I tried to impart to my students. I was a teacher at heart, and I learned early that the immediate subject was not always the lesson.
I was always comfortable in a school setting, so when Mr. Halverson of the University of Wisconsin approached me in the summer of 1926 and offered me a job I decided I should take it. I had been cooking at Prinicpia College and on my summer vacations I worked as a cook at resorts. He had visited the place where I was cooking in Tomahawk and liked my food well enough to encourage me to come and cook at the University, where he was the Director of Residence Halls. I accepted and stayed there for 25 years. One thing often leads to another in life. I always had sincere appreciation for the great opportunity accorded to me by the University. Its prestige made me known nationally.
I moved to Madison in the fall of 1926. In 1930 Beatrice and I were married. She remained my steadfast and able partner for the duration of our time in Madison. In 1936 I was invited to the Tuskegee Institute to set up a commercial dietetics course. I can say with certainty that this was a direct result of my achievements at the University of Wisconsin. While at Tuskegee I met and worked closely with Dr. George Washington Carver, the famed agriculturalist. He changed my entire outlook on food and the importance of good food and nutrition to human beings.
During World War II there were military stationed at the University. Because of the reputation I had earned the Navy asked me to personally conduct a cooking training course for Navy cooks and bakers. I was happy to do it. By the time the United States entered the war I was already 44 years old, too old to join the Army. This enabled me to use what gifts I had to contribute what I could to the war effort. In those days everyone wanted to contribute something to make sure we won. Women went to work in factories. Old men trained younger men in whatever their professions might be. I taught young men how to prepare good food for large groups of people.
We turned out some excellent chefs for both the Army and Navy. After the war many of my former students wanted to continue to study, so it was proposed that the University develop a cooking training program. Its purpose was two-fold, to educate chefs in the art of cooking and to train cooks for various university and state agencies and departments. We developed a course that started with the basics and took students all the way through the planning, preparation, and serving of a meal to a group of specially invited guests.
There are some lessons that are basic. Anyone who wants to be a success in foods must learn about food from its origin to the table. Freshness is the first step in preparation and that freshness must be maintained throughout the entire process of cooking and preparing food. Once you learn the basics of foods and you learn the importance of freshness then you are already well on your way to success as a cook. As in any endeavor, proper preparation makes for a more rewarding result.
Good food is made up of the ingredients you put into it. It is only as good as the quality of those ingredients and whatever spice you can add. I was something of an expert on spices. My first book was Seasoning Secrets, which dealt with herbs and spices. It was a thin book, but the subject could cover volumes. Seasoning is an art. It merits attention. It rewards efforts. But remember, it is always far better to use less than required than to use more than is needed, everything in moderation as they say. The when and how long are just as important as the where and how much.
Our program was a two-year program and we turned out some fine chefs. After 25 years with the University I decided to retire and spend my time working on the T. V. and radio shows that Beatrice and I had developed, “What’s Cookin’?”, with Carson and Beatrice Gulley. I was also in demand as a guest speaker—so much so that I had to convert the trunk of my car into a refrigerator for the supplies—and I found that I needed all of my time to be able to devote to those other interests. After leaving the University Beatrice and I also started a catering service.
I must say that as a Negro man in the period in which I lived I was treated well by the University. They paid me well, dealt with me fairly, provided me housing, but I do have to talk about one particular thing that was difficult for me. Our housing was provided by the University. We lived in an apartment in Tripp Hall for many years, but like most people we had dreams of someday owning our own home. It proved to be a difficult dream to fulfill. Despite the outward friendliness of the city I discovered there were not many Madisonians who wanted to sell a colored man a home back then, let alone have us move into the neighborhood or, worse yet, next door. They fell prey to that idea that it would lower the property value of their own homes. They didn’t think of it as discrimination, it was purely economical. They were trying to protect their own interests. Nowadays I think people have a better understanding of institutional and ingrained racism. Whatever they thought their reasons were it was a struggle for us. I cannot tell you how many times—countless times—we were refused housing in this city, despite the fact that I was a long-time University employee. We faced so much embarrassment we gave up hope of ever owning a home of our own in the city.
It wasn’t until after one of the aldermen, Ivan Nestingen, introduced an ordinance to prohibit landowners from refusing to rent or sell because of race, color, or religion that we had an opportunity to purchase a house. The city held three months of hearings on prejudice in the city. I testified before them and told them of our problems finding suitable housing. Other people told them about problems they faced trying to join clubs, unions, getting service at certain businesses. The list of indignities was longer than you would like to imagine.
The Council did pass that ordinance and Beatrice and I did buy our house. It was in the Crestwood neighborhood. Of course we were the first non-white homeowners there. There was some resistance, from a certain few property owners, but it died down quickly and we became just a couple of the neighbors. Madison was a better place to live than most. I was able to play golf on the course right next to us here. In fact I can see the hole from here on which I hit a hole-in-one. There was a time, though, that black men were only allowed on golf courses if they were there as servants. There was that time when the American dream of home ownership was unheard of for a man of color. Like a good meal that dream wasn’t simply fulfilled. It didn’t appear on the table out of nowhere. It happened because of all the preparation, the groundwork that was laid with all of the Negro race’s struggles over the years, and the slow, steady crawl toward equality. I’d like to think a little of my spice helped along the way..
When I think of the Berlin I knew, the city to which I came in 1925 as a student and the city in which I served as a Rabbi of the Jewish community until 1939, a host of associations is conjured up in my mind: places which became part of the spiritual geography of my being, events which decisively determined the course of my life, and people whose presence became inextricably woven into the fabric of my existence.
No one, not even the greatest pessimist or prophet of doom, could have predicted that in the middle of the first half of the 20th century, the lights would go out over Europe, and darkness would fall over an entire continent on a bright noonday. German Jews, with few exceptions, felt it impossible to believe that the dark clouds of Fascism had gathered on the horizon of their native land, the land in which they felt as thoroughly at home as American Jews do in America. I, too, believed that the Nazi nightmare would pass like a bad dream. It did not.
By 1938 German Jews had already lived under Hitler for six years. A government-sponsored boycott of Jewish businesses had already happened in 1933, with stormtroopers blocking the entrance to stores marked with the inscription "Jude." These were the days when Goebbels, Hitler's Minister of Propaganda, said: "Treat the Jews like a rose, don't harm them; just don't water them." Already there were the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which practically cancelled the civic emancipation of Jews, abolishing their citizenship and forbidding all cultural and social contact between Jews and non-Jews.
It took the events of the first two November weeks of 1938 to convince even the most hopeful that all hope was lost. On Crystal Night, it all ended. Hitler told his henchman Goebbels to "let the Gestapo have a fling." The Gestapo burned all the synagogues in Germany, about 500 of them. The burning of the Synagogues was just one more step in the gradual enactment of the plan for the "Final Solution."
I recall very vividly, at about 2:00 a.m. I was awakened by the ring of the telephone. I heard the voice of the custodian of my synagogue shouting: "Rabbi, our Temple is on fire." When I arrived at the synagogue, I saw its inside an ocean of flames reaching up to the balcony and way into the high cupola. Firemen were pouring water on surrounding buildings to protect them from the fire and the heat. Police were standing idly by. Nazi stormtroopers were jeering and shouting anti-Jewish slogans. This 3,200-seat synagogue, dedicated in 1929, was the last Jewish House of Worship ever built on German soil.
Standing in front of the burning Temple, which had been filled to capacity Shabbat after Shabbat and only a few weeks earlier, on Simchat Torah had resounded with the gaiety of children, it suddenly occurred to me that this Synagogue might not be the only one set on fire.
Following the Crystal Night and the burning of the Synagogues, rumors circulated that now a mass arrest of Jewish men would take place. Members of the Gestapo came to my apartment and arrested me without any warrant, without giving any reason, simply because I was a Rabbi. I was arrested—they called it protective custody—and imprisoned in a concentration camp. The camp was near Berlin. There were some 14,000 prisoners in the camp. The majority were not Jews, but they were Christian—Germans. There were gypsies, there were Jehovah's Witnesses, there were a few Catholic priests—a medley of all kinds. It was a concentration camp, not a gas chamber. Otherwise, I would not be here.
You never can sleep. You are in little huts—muddy and snowy. Nothing to eat except some sort of lukewarm water soup and soft potato bread in the morning. They dressed you in pajamas. At 4:30 a.m. up. At 5:15 everybody on the big exercise field, standing at attention for an hour. Then they march you out and you have to work. We had to build munitions plants. Most of these guys were not even used to heavy labor. I was more used to it.
Two people had to lift big stones. These young fellows with the gun—they kicked you and beat you for fun. If you dropped the stone, they beat you some more. This went on until 8 o'clock in the evening, with 10 minutes for lunch. Naturally the people died like flies.
Twice I was called before the commander-in-chief there. You go to the office. You face the wall. He converses with you in sharp tones. The guy said to me that he would discharge me if I signed a number of statements. I didn't know what the statements were. What I'm saying now sounds very heroic. I'm not a born hero. I said no. Why did I say no? I simply felt I had to say no because of the others. Had I accepted this offer, it would have definitely lowered the morale of the people.
The guy kicked me out. Out I was. This went on. It got worse and worse during the winter. The cold—and I caught pneumonia. But the worst was my bleeding. My feet absolutely had no skin on. Then it happened a second time that I was called. I could be dismissed if I left the country immediately. I had no place to go. I had no relatives anywhere in the world. They all lived in Germany. So I thought to myself, "Boy, this is the last chance for breakfast." I said yes. The guy gave me a lecture and said wherever you go, the hand of the Gestapo is strong enough to catch you and bring you back. And I believed it in those days. These were good olden days, you understand. This was 1939-40. The wholesale extermination and deportation started in '42.
Why did he attack Judaism? He once said, "The Jews are the ones who invented conscience." I think that's the only true thing he ever said. What Hitler did, if it was a shock to anyone, it was to me, for the simple reason that the German Jew was so thoroughly integrated into the life of Germany in every respect—culturally, socially, economically, politically, in every respect—that the German Jew naturally could not understand what actually was going on. My father was born in the same house where I was born. My grandfather was born in the same little house and my great-grandfather. For a long time I was absolutely full of hope. I was absolutely of the opinion that National Socialism in Germany would just be a passing phase. People used to say, "Well, give them another week, " "Give them another month," "Give them another year." And of course his reign was not established for a thousand years as he had hoped. It was short-lived indeed, but it was not short enough to actually preserve the lives of so many millions of people and indeed it was a shock.
It is unbelievable; it is incomprehensible. The human mind cannot comprehend, the human heart cannot feel, and human speech cannot express what is beyond the power of comprehension, feeling, and expression. We can agonize about the death of a single child. The death of one million children is an abstraction. Nothing in life becomes real until it becomes personal.
Shall we forget and forgive? Forgetting is not a matter of will. Can I forgive? I wish I could. I believe in man's capacity and moral responsibility to forgive. However, I can forgive only wrong done to me personally. I have no right to forgive what was done to others. But I can stretch out my hand and grasp the hand stretched out to me in reconciliation. I do believe in reconciliation in this as in other situations. Hatred should not be perpetuated. I do not want to have my children or future generations live by hatred. Hatred is no seed bed from which redemption grows.
Truthfully, without getting melodramatic, I lived and worked for six years under Hitler. I was in a concentration camp, but I got out, fortunately. So the years in this country have been a very special bonus. I could have belonged to the six million just as well. I, too, could have been born one of the millions turned into ashes or made into soap. Because life was given to me for a second time, I have to make up for it. What the world needs is bridges, not walls.
In God's house are many mansions occupied by the most diverse people—all His children. It is a tragedy beyond words that we cannot live together in peace in the global village which is the earth. As long as the earth remains we shall always search for truth, yearn for justice and work for that better world in which man will live in harmony and peace with his brother man. To a Jew despairing is blasphemy. If we despaired, if we gave up hope, we would be guilty of collaborating with the enemy. Jews have never surrendered to hopelessness and permitted their lives to be poisoned by hatred. On the contrary, the alchemy of the Jewish spirit has always transmuted death into life, despair into hope. For this is the meaning of being Jewish—never to give up, never to yield to despair. It is our destiny to forever bear witness that man is not the enemy of man, but his friend and brother.
It has always been a source of comfort to me that, in spite of all experiences to the contrary, there is more goodness than evil in the world. That faith, hope, and love must never be allowed to die in the human heart—in spite of everything—is the legacy of the dead to the living. It is the ultimate lesson of the Holocaust.
The war was an interruption for me. Some people go into the military as civilians and come out as soldiers. Some go in as boys and come out men. I went into the Navy as an artist and I came out as an artist. I was never meant to be a soldier and I was already 36 years old when I joined. I was, simply, an artist. If a person finds what he can do best, he will be happier. At the time I went in I was working at a defense plant in Milwaukee and I hated it. I knew I was going to be drafted by the Army, which I had no interest in joining, so I enlisted in the Navy, which at least had some romantic appeal to me. By the time it was over I realized I loved the Navy, but it wasn't what I wanted to do with my life. I really simply wanted to pursue my art.
My professional career had started already in the 1930's, with help from the Federal Arts Project. At the time I painted primarily landscapes and some social realism. But the Arts Project encouraged experimentation. It encouraged trying new things, and it provided artists with the materials and a livelihood that allowed that kind of experimentation. For a young man fresh out of art school it was a godsend. It surely helped me cement my own career.
At that time in my life, I was very moved by a couple of political situations. One was the suffering of blacks, particularly in this country, and the other was the Spanish Civil War. I was strongly opposed to the fascists and supported what I guess you'd call the communists, the republicans. I even auctioned a painting to help raise money for them. I painted many works on the Spanish Civil War and also on the treatment of blacks in America, including two of my better known works, Air Raid and Lynch Law. At the time I was young, and passionate and, of course, I believed that art could change the world. I wanted to create art that would change the world. Eventually, I just got away from the political stuff, I guess, because I got interested in other things, especially the meaning of form in art.
With my early work I used thematic ideas as form and content. Eventually, the form became more important. To me form always took priority. It's difficult to define my personal philosophy on art. I'm not abstract at all. I studied under the regionalist painter, John Steuart Curry, who was not an abstract painter either. Now, I would never knock abstract art, you understand, but I like to relate to something in pictorial form. I like shapes. Something I can grasp and play with in terms of color and form. It becomes about perception. Something to which I can lend my own interpretation, my own reactions, so that the work is not telling me what to think, but maybe suggesting what to feel, and the feelings might lead to further contemplation.
My style developed as I grew both as a man and as an artist. The time I spent on board the Bremerton during World War II was not a time for art theory and philosophy. I was there to serve my country. But I tell you, because of my age, they really didn't make me do that much while I was in the service. Most of the time I was able to spend sketching, drawing men on board the ship as she traveled down the eastern seaboard, through the Panama Canal and down the coast of South America. I made hundreds of sketches while on board that ship and while I think they were decent sketches I also know they were not the work that I wanted to do. They were not the paintings of the neighborhoods of Milwaukee or the southwest landscapes or the Terrace chairs that I was famous for later in my life.
After I left the military I became a teacher and I believe it was the best possible move for me professionally. It gave me the best of both worlds. I was encouraged by the university to paint and to show my work, but I also had the security of the job at the university. The university allowed me to do things such as take a leave of absence to study Etruscan art in Italy. That in turn impacted my own work and my growth.
At the same time I was given the opportunity to teach others about the things that inspired me so much. I always enjoyed teaching students who had the same passion for art that I did as a youth. I always liked the division of work between teaching and painting. It kept me in the real world in such a way that I could not lose myself in the world of the salons and galleries. It allowed me to paint what was real, as well as to focus on the more theoretical concepts of art. It allowed me to explore form. It gave me the freedom to work hard.
I stayed at the University for the rest of my career. When I retired someone asked if I would stop painting and I told them, no, no, I like to paint too much to ever give it up. It is a way of life. I found also that I continued to teach in whatever ways that I still could. You do what you can to be happy. Finding what you do best, as I mentioned, can help make you happy. Why would I stop in the twilight of my life when it had sustained me so well for so long?
When you look back at your life and all the things you've done it ends up being a lot more than you might have expected. You don't think of it as you're going along, but you do things just because you have to do them, or you feel the responsibility to do them, and they end up adding up into a life fully lived.
Oh, my, I have been a few places. When I look back I can say that I believe I have contributed something to this world. People look at me, maybe, and they think, why she's a bookkeeper. She's that quiet woman who does accounting behind a desk all day. Why would her life be interesting? What has she done? But, you know, that's what I did for a living for a part of my life. It's not what I did for a life.
I meant to be a teacher. I spent time and money to go away to college and become a teacher. It was one of the few things a woman could do back when I was younger, especially a Negro woman. So I thought, this is what I'll do with my life. I'll teach. Hmm, I was wrong. I did teach for a while, in Oklahoma, but it wasn't what I did with my life. What I did was live it and try to be true to God and you can do that in many, many ways.
I had the occasion to be true to my country, too. I remember Pearl Harbor—there wasn't anyone my age who didn't remember Pearl Harbor—and I remember how everyone in the country wanted to do something about it. There was shock and horror at first and then people wanted action. They wanted a response. So finally, after resisting for quite a while, America declared war and everyone wanted to contribute to the effort. Of course, for the men it was easy. They just had to go down to the local recruiting office and sign up and they'd be sent off to fight the enemy in Europe or Japan. Few questions were asked. Many boys lied about their age to be able to go.
Historically, women had to stay home during wars. In World War II, they were expected to stay home and tend to the farms or take work in the factories so production wouldn't slow down. But it was a time of change in this country. Never before had so many women done so much work that had typically been men's work. And we started to see that we could do it as well. When the war was over a most of the women went back to being housewives or teachers, but a lot of them didn't. A lot of them wanted to stay in the professions that had been opened up to them because of the war. The role of women in society was permanently changed by that war.
As for me I didn't want to work in a factory, but I did want to do my part. I just didn't know how. I prayed for guidance. One day I saw a poster of a young woman in military uniform. (Showing a WAC poster) It was like this one. It invited women to join the Army just like men and be part of the effort to win the war. Now, of course, the poster showed a white woman. I didn't even know if I could join, if they would let me join as a colored woman. But I loved the way she looked in that uniform and I imagined myself wearing the same outfit and doing my part. I knew there were Negro men serving overseas, so I thought I should at least try. I really wanted to do my part to help win the war. It was the first time in history that women were allowed to serve in the Army in any way other than as nurses.
To my surprise they took me. They took thousands of young women to train and to serve in the Army, mostly in clerical jobs like sorting military mail, but some in mechanical jobs, air traffic jobs, and other jobs that were usually men's. The motto was something like, "Free a man for combat". In other words, if I sorted mail at a base in France that meant one more man could go to the front and help defeat the enemy.
I was sent first of all to a training camp, and it was hard work. Every morning we were awakened with the sound of a cannon booming and the bugle playing Reveries and I swear I never adjusted to the violence of that cannon noise. We worked very, very hard in our training, but we learned to work together. We learned what it meant to be in the Army and how much everyone counted on everyone else.
But in the middle of those lessons on teamwork, the training camp was still segregated. The black women were put into a different platoon. All the facilities, like the clubs, beauty shops, things like that, were segregated. It turns out there was a quota on Negro women in the Army, no more than 10% of the whole force, to reflect the population at large. I was one of only about 6,500 to serve, which was less than the 10% allowed, and I was proud to serve, but I did hope to be treated the same as other soldiers.
I have to admit the segregation surprised me. Weren't we there to do the same job? Weren't we there to fight together? I grew up using separate facilities, separate drinking fountains, so it shouldn't have surprised me, but still . . . When I joined I was one of many who thought that our presence serving our country might mean some progress for the Negro people in this country. If we served, men and women, and did our best to help defeat the common enemy, were we not then common friends? Maybe I was a little naïve to think that one thing like that would help create equality and maybe I was naïve to be surprised at the segregated facilities in camp, but it was what I thought.
I realize now nothing is that simple. This was almost 25 years after women got the right to vote, but we were barely allowed to serve, and at different pay rates, with rules prohibiting women rising above a certain rank or having rank over any men. That surprised me too, I guess, though I should have known as a black woman I had two strikes against me and I was pretty far down on the totem pole. To me, I thought all veterans deserved respect, black or white, men or women, and I just assumed that others would think the same. Of course I believed all people deserved respect as children of God.
I wasn't totally wrong. I just didn't understand how slow change can be. My service in the WACs may have been one small contribution on the road to equality, but all of those little things help advance equality along. Later, when I was President of the Madison chapter of the NAACP that was another small contribution and when I served on the Board of the YWCA and other organizations that, too, helped the cause. You just need to put enough of those small contributions together 'til it adds up to something and over the long haul you look back and think, "Yes, things have changed for the better. I have done some good in my life." You realize that the world is still not perfect, that it has a long ways to go, but you understand that the slow process of change is a process that continues to this day and into the future.
God calls you to do what you can to work for justice and to fulfill His plan. Part of what I did was the 13 months I spent overseas in uniform. Another part of my contribution was all the time I gave to my church—I was always very active in the church—and the many boards and organizations that I belonged to. All of it adds up in the end. Maybe my contributions altogether added up to nothing more than one hundredths of an inch on a thousand mile road to freedom, but without thousands of people all making those same kinds of sacrifices and contributions there is no road even to travel on. If everyone keeps the faith and keeps on working, if everyone keeps walking down that road, we will reach that land of milk and honey at the end.
(As the audience is coming up Elizabeth is singing a song; she ends as they gather around)
That is one of my favorite songs. There is just something about it that moves me. I find the religious music to be most pleasing, don't you? Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like other kinds of music. I do. I simply find that there is more truth and meaning to songs that spring forth from a spiritual place in the heart, rather than from the day-to-day lives we all lead. They have more meaning and relevance to me . . . although these days maybe I'm the only one.
I grew up with music. I would not say that I was a particularly happy child. Oh, I would say like many, if not most, children I had a fear of being unloved or unwanted, but my parents took care of me as well as they could. I did grow up with music and that certainly helped. It was more than many children had during the Great Depression. While my family was firmly entrenched in Madison—some of our furniture can supposedly be seen at the Governor's mansion—I could see that there were many that suffered terribly. I was somewhat more fortunate than most during that time. I was definitely fortunate to have been given music lessons at an early age, starting at the age of five. I was taught piano and organ and studied both of them the rest of my life. If you are a student of music it is a lifelong process. You don't receive a degree and consider yourself finished. The study of music is a continuous lifelong classroom in which you are constantly learning new things
Well, I could recite a litany of training that I have had, but it would be too long and I'm afraid it would bore you to tears. One of the highlights includes the good fortune of studying piano with Gunnar Johansen here at the University of Wisconsin. He was one of the most prolific composers I have ever come across and he never restricted himself to one style. He was constantly exploring new ways of saying old things, old ways of saying new things, synthesizing all of it into bold new creations. I learned a great deal from him about many types of music. He never restricted himself to one style of music. He never restricted himself to music. Sometimes while he was supposed to be teaching music he would talk about physics or politics or a host of other topics. He believed that music could not be independent, that everything in this world was interconnected. He influenced me greatly in that way.
I lived for many years in New York and directed choirs for about 15-20 years all around the metropolitan area. While in New York I was an assistant to Dr. T. Charles Lee, who was also the Director of the Oratorio Society of New York. I studied at Trinity College of Music in London and two years at Juilliard here in the states. It all started with an interest as a child, though. These things often do.
As I mentioned my career started at the age of five. That was when I first began to study music and learn to play the piano and organ. While I was still in high school and college here in Madison I belonged to the First Congregational Church Choir and I enjoyed it immensely. There is . . . there is something . . . I can't really define it . . . about choral renditions of religious music. I felt it even as a child. I still feel it. Just because a person is a little older doesn't mean that they don't still feel passionately. They do . . . just a little slower. I felt an emotional connection to that music.
Oh, there was another important teacher I did not yet mention. During World War II I was the only student of Nadia Boulanger while she was in residence here. Can you imagine that? She was the first woman to conduct some of America's greatest orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic. She was also considered to be one of the greatest teachers of the last century and for a time I was her only student.
Also during the war I worked at Truax Field teaching Morse Code to soldiers. It was an intensive course and while I enjoyed it I certainly did not have the passion for Morse Code the way I did for music. The highlight of my wartime experiences would have to be the lessons I received from Mlle. Boulanger, not the lessons I imparted to young men at Truax. I simply could not wait for those days when I could be with her and learn from her. If you want to talk about passion . . . well . . . nothing compares to the sacred passion that music stirs within the human breast. Mlle. Boulanger encouraged that passion. She was very strict, but with a delightful humor as well. She could be stern, but she was brilliant. She taught lessons not only in music, but in life. She was one of the most influential women in my life.
I tried to be as good with my Morse Code students as she was with me, but I knew that I could never be as good as she. What she did was to instill discipline, but allow creative freedom. That is not an easy thing to do. It is a difficult balancing act, especially with younger students. Somehow she did it, though. She once said, "A great work is made out of a combination of obedience and liberty."
I suppose the same could be said of our nation. There has always been the liberty we enjoy, but it comes with a price. That price is obedience, or, in other words, responsibility. I felt responsible enough during the war that I went to code school so that I could teach young soldiers. While I didn't enjoy it as much as my music I did take it as seriously. If those young men had not fully comprehended the lessons we taught they could have cost the lives of many others. I was as strict a teacher as you may ever see. I taught the obedience, with considerably less of the liberty.
After the war I was encouraged to go to New York. During that time I pursued a career in publishing, as well as my music. I must have worked with at least two to three dozen chorales and church choirs. What I'm referring to here are professional musical groups. While I love music of all kinds I must admit I do have a low tolerance for mediocrity in performance. I could not have worked with amateur groups without losing some of my sanity, or at least my humor.
While I lived in New York I met many creative and talented people who became part of my intimate circle of friends. Foremost among these was Marion Ridgway, a painter, teacher, writer, publisher, artitsts' representative, and most importantly, a dear, dear companion to me. We could sit and talk for hours upon hours. It was the best of conversation. And we never argued about a thing. When you have someone that close to you with whom you can converse about anything there is no need for argument.
Marion passed away in 1992 and I swear a great deal of the music went out of me at that time. It was as if the last note of a great piece of music had been played but got caught somewhere in the pipes of an organ and had to be left unfinished. Oh, there are still songs that bring me back to certain times and sometimes to uncertain emotions. But it's not the same without someone with whom to share it. (Pulling out a photo) Oh, here is a picture of her. Isn't she lovely?
After Marion died I created an award in her name. It is the Marion Vannett Ridgway Award and it is given every year to someone who shows great promise in writing children's books. Marion had a children's book published in 1945 or so and for many years after that was a friend to many writers and artists. It is a way for the world to remember her.
Me? I think I'll be forgotten. I never wrote anything that will be remembered. Conducting is something that is only in that moment of time. In the late 1990's I had an interest in photography and wanted to publish a calendar, but I never got that done. So what does a person like me leave behind? Sometimes it feels like it was nothing more than cancelled checks, old letters, decades-old receipts, and a note that's never been played. Who knows, though. Perhaps I touched some young singer or organist's life in some small way and ignited in them a passion for music or living. I guess that is all we can hope for in the end, isn't it, to have it matter that we were here?
My name is John, John Barkley Rosser, but I have always gone by the middle name, Barkley. Maybe it’s a Southern thing, I don’t know. It’s what I prefer. Barkley. My wife always corrected people for me. “It’s Barkley,” she would say whenever someone would refer to me as John.
Annetta always watched out for me. She is a beautiful person and I always loved her very much. I think I fell head over heels for her the moment I first laid eyes on her. That does happen sometimes, you know. The only other time was when I was introduced to logic. (Pause) But yes, mathematicians can be romantics, too. (Smiles) When I met my wife it was Christmastime, at a concert in our home state of Florida. Annetta was the concertmaster, I was a first clarinet, and my eyes were on her more than the music. As I watched her I was determined to meet her at intermission. We stopped playing, the audience applauded, the curtain closed, I turned and she was already gone. Panicking I looked around to find her and within a minute she was surrounded by almost all the available boys. First trumpet, trombone, almost all the drums. The clarinets are often overlooked. I was at a loss and didn’t try to approach her at that time.
But sometimes fate intervenes. The car in which she was riding that night broke down and I was able to offer her a ride, so I got to meet her after all. However, I was not properly introduced until a professor of mine did me that favor some time later. From the time we started dating we did almost everything together. As we grew into adulthood she became a composer, I became a mathematician, and though the two share some similarities—music is very mathematical—they are in fact two very separate worlds. I at least enjoyed playing and singing, and listening to her compositions. Her love was more of the mathematician and not the math. Math, though, is really nothing more than another way to speak. It is symbols. It's music put to numbers. Beethoven's Ninth is an equation of joy.
Annetta and I were married in 1935, the year that I was a research fellow at Harvard. The next year I accepted a job at Cornell where I stayed on for 27 years until I was appointed professor of mathematics and computer sciences at the University of Wisconsin. That was 1963, the year I was appointed head of the Army Math Research Center, a position which changed my life in ways I could not have imagined when I took it.
For those who are not mathematicians or scientists, it can be difficult to understand what it is that we do. I am often asked, “How do mathematicians work?”, to which I always respond, “They think.” How else does one work at such abstractions? Mathematicians are thinkers, ponderers, perhaps you could even say philosophers. Like other types of thinkers we spend time working things out in our heads, on paper, on chalkboards, or on computers. Mathematical pondering is necessary to move our society forward.
Without mathematicians we would never have landed a man on the moon. We would not have created the atomic bomb. We would have lost the Second World War. I worked at that time as Chief of the Theoretical Ballistics Section of the national ballistics laboratory for the U. S. Government. In layman's terms I calculated trajectory, distance, aim, things like that for American rockets and warheads so that they would better find their targets. To me it was important work. I wanted to see Hitler and Japan defeated as much as the next guy and without some of this behind-the-scenes science and mathematics that may not have happened. Sometimes, one scientist with an equation is as good as a battalion in the field.
I've done other government work at various times over the years. I helped to develop the Polaris missile. I did more rocket trajectory work in the early 50's. I was Director of Research at the Institute for Numerical Analysis, a director at the Institute for Defense Analysis in the late 50's and early 60's, and more. I think none was as important as the work I did in World War II, because it was essential to our military success in the most crucial war in history. None was as controversial as my tenure as the Director of the Army Math Research Center. None was as successful as my work on the Apollo Project's Space Vehicle Panel.
Maybe I shouldn't say my tenure at the Army Math Research Center was controversial. I was there for 10 years and that was a small part of it. You see, what we did there was pretty much theoretical research which could be applied to many uses in the military or in industry. The problem was not the work we did. It was the misunderstanding of what we did. Because the word "Army" was in our name it was presumed that there were all sorts of secret Army projects being conducted there, even that we were building weapons there, which was crazy. It was during the Vietnam era and students started to demand closure of the facility. They started threatening us. At times it seemed unsafe to walk on campus. Moreso I feared for the safety of my wife. Often I was afraid to leave her at home because of threats the center had received. It was the same with the staff there. I felt guilty having them come to work and have to walk past a gauntlet of protesters. That all finally ended when they blew up the building and killed one man who was working late.
What the protestors didn't understand was that there was no secret work being done. The work I did during World War II was far more secret than anything we did at that center during the 1960's and that was simply explaining to the government how the Germans could fire a rocket straight up into the air, turn it around, and send it to its target. That's what made me an expert on rocket ballistics was that explanation. That's how little secrecy there was at the Math Researcher Center, too. We were sometimes asked if there were guards at the door and why do we waste our efforts on a narrow range of military problems. The answer was that there were no guards, and we worked on the problems that seemed to us at the time to have the widest range of possible application. Or maybe just because they were interesting.
Yes, the Center was funded by the Army, but that was the extent of it. They might come to us and pose a theoretical problem that they wanted us to work on, but the results of our research into that problem were never secret. Everything went into reports and could be used by anybody that might have a use for it, the Army, a manufacturer, whoever else might have a use for the applied mathematics that were the result of us working on the problem. The thing that bothered me the most was that none of those people ever took the time to find out what was really going on there.
I don't like to talk about it a lot. The misunderstanding still saddens me, and it was only one small part of my whole time at Wisconsin and my entire career. I'd just as soon talk about the early days of computers. I hold a pocket calculator now and realize you can do just as much with one of those as you can with the huge computers we had in the early days, the ones that took up entire rooms. You can solve differential equations with a pocket calculator. It is amazing how far they have come in such a relatively short time. I'm proud that I was in on the ground floor of the computer age.
I'm proud of all the work that I did for the Government over the years, the ballistics work during the world war, the space program work, and yes, my tenure as Director of the Army Math Research Center. I believe I had a reputation not only as a mathematician, but as an understanding director who would encourage everyone to do their best. We brought together some of the most creative minds in the world to do their work, to do their philosophical pondering in an uninterrupted place.
At the end of the day I was pretty much like any other professor at the university. Despite all the work I did, the organizations I belonged to, the commendations I had received, I'd be just like any other guy at the end of the day. I'd go home and spend time with my wife and we really enjoyed each other's company. I'd sit in a chair, clipboard in hand, and work on equations. She'd play music, or sing, and for me the world couldn't be better. She always inspired me with her music and with her presence. That is what I always loved the most is that song in the background and Annetta beside me. See, I told you mathematicians could be romantics. The man of logic consumed by the most illogical of things—love—and that's okay by me.