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MY FATHER CAME FROM THE ORKNEY ISLANDS, JUST NORTH of Scotland, in 1870, exactly fifty-one years before he died. Those work-filled years fortunately fell at a time when our country was expanding rapidly. The Watt & Shand Department Store, which he and his Scottish partner, James Shand, established, has become one of the notable institutions of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.
He provided each of his six children, as well as my mother, with financial security. He removed from each of us the necessity of working for our daily bread and gave each of us the possibility of making his own cock-horse and finding his own Banbury Cross.
My mother's family, however, were old Americans and had been the pioneers of Geigertown, near Reading, when eastern Pennsylvania was the frontier. Led by the founder of what became a large American family, Anthony Jacob Henkel, a pastor from Neckargemund, near Heidelberg, landed with his wife and seven children at the port of Philadelphia in 1716. One of his descendants was Laura Louise Geiger, my mother. She was the daughter of Christopher Geiger, an ironmaster who had worked small iron deposits in Lancaster County before settling in the city.
Although Lancaster County was the heart of the Pennsylvania Dutch country, the Geigers seem to have spoken English for two generations. Her mother's father, Wilhelm Baetes, on the other hand, has come down in history as one of the Lutheran ministers who clung to High German against great odds.
Although my father had built a chateau-like house for us, my mother, foreshadowing the present, seldom had the servants whom she could easily have afforded, chiefly because both parents were accustomed to living simply.
I always had the wherewithal to embark on my ambitions. I represented to perfection the paradox of the poor little rich boy. When my elementary school playmates, whose fathers' incomes were a fraction of my father's, were receiving allowances of fifty cents a week (a lot of money in 1910), I earned my five cents weekly by being on time at breakfast and family prayers.
It was not so much the ample pile of stocks and bonds my father left me which assured that I always had money when needed. It was the industrious habits which I had inherited from both parents. Without these habits, my capital might easily have slipped away. Work was part of our American dream.
Now, at the age of seventy-one, enjoying life as much as ever and without an ache or a pain, I am faced with the job of writing the story of my life so that it will also be the history of The Experiment in International Living. As I think back now, I am struck as never before with the realization that before The Experiment started, I had already lived one fairly complete life. The organization was not born until my fortieth year. I am amazed to see that from my earliest days, the things which I did could scarcely have been better selected as preparation for the work of my second life, that of creating a method of education for international understanding.
Born in the rich and lovely County of Lancaster, Pennsylvania; inherited financial security from father, religious zeal and artistic appreciation from mother; work habits from both; started camping at the age of 8 and hiking at 12.
LIVING ON THE EDGE OF TOWN AS WE DID, OUR BIG LAWN became the chief gathering place for the boys of the neighborhood. Detached from the town proper, the ten hundred block of the Marietta Pike was lined with many of the pretentious homes of the town, including our home called Roslyn. Harry Raub lived nearby, and just across the street lived Erle Brimmer. We were all about the same age.
On May 3, 1899, I was to be six years old, and Mother decided to give me a party. I was in first grade at Miss Musser's Private School on West Chestnut Street. Apart from the kindergarten, the school had only twelve students, and all of them were invited to the party. The great day came, and I walked home for dinner as usual, more than a mile. Sometimes, when I returned to school I would ride with Father, but this day I walked. When I arrived at the school, there was a surprising absence of the usual happy noises. Miss Musser laughed heartily when she saw me and said, "Everyone else stayed out of school to go to your birthday party, so we are not having school this afternoon." Since my mother had carefully set the party time for four-thirty in order to avoid just this, I was quite indignant that everyone else had been so frivolous. But again I trudged the mile back home.
We must have had the good Pennsylvania Dutch refreshments, always substantial. Pretzels and ice cream were what we all liked most; the salty pretzels were a perfect foil for Lizzie Schultze's superb burnt-almond cream. (Lizzie was a man.)
Only one thing about the party is clear in my memory. Harry Raub and I had an altercation over the possession of the swing. A fist fight followed, and I must have had the best of it because Harry rushed into the house, got the pocket-knife which he had brought me as a present, and flounced home. In a very short time, the knife and he were back. To cover his embarrassment, he explained that his mother had sent him.
After first grade, I transferred from Miss Musser's school to the Chestnut Street Public School, and in doing so, found Kenneth Appel. Although two years younger than I, out of the hundreds of boys he became my constant companion.
The year that I was in the fourth grade, when cold and slush drove us indoors, we started to produce an elaborate play. Instead of the popular boys' books of the period, Horatio Alger and the Rover Boys, my brothers, James and Charles (six and five years older than I), had acquired a full set of the works of the English author G. H. Henty. These I devoured avidly and exulted or suffered with each of the heroes. Thus I became an expert on the life and times of William the Conqueror.
First of all, I had to write the play, and there seems to have been no difficulty about that. The original and final draft I wrote into a notebook which, unfortunately, has been lost. My father's department store was selling some particularly useless military surplus from the Civil War, and a sword, the hilt of which was bent, found its way into our house. So the play was called The Broken Hilt, and through it the villain in the piece was identified and brought to justice.
Harry, Erle, Kenneth and I practiced our parts for months and months, and in the meantime, Mother, in spite of the load of a large house and a big family, turned out with enthusiastic patience whole wardrobes of eleventh-century soldierly costumes which I had designed with great gusto. The helmets, complete with nose protectors, were made of cardboard (with only the slightest help from Mother) and painted with silver-bronze. Mother might have chided me for asking her to make all the uniforms (which were never used), but the subject was never mentioned. I feel sure she was quite proud that I had written the play and that we worked on it so long.
Although this was the time when girls meant absolutely nothing to us, and while the cast was almost entirely masculine, on very special occasions girls were invited to play the minor parts. The theater was in the attic of the Brimmers' house. We must have been underfoot nearly every afternoon and all day on Saturday for the long winter. One of my clearest memories is that Mrs. Brimmer, a particularly sweet woman, and the cook (whose name has passed into oblivion), always greeted us with smiles and cookies and never once with an unpleasant word.
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Kenneth, who had lost his mother previously, made it clear that my mother, sister Laura, and Mrs. Brimmer provided for him the feminine touch which unhappily was lacking in his own home.
When the winter turned into spring, interest in the play began to flag, and finally, without having given a single performance, the out-of-doors called us, and The Broken Hilt was forgotten.
In our family, every morning just before breakfast, the young and the maids, if we had any at that time, would assemble in the library. Mother would read several verses from the Bible, followed by brief, written comments. Then we all knelt down with our elbows on the chairs, and Mother read a more lengthy prayer. The readings came from a large volume which, I believe, contained three hundred and sixty-five exercises.
On Sundays we had prayers as usual, and then everyone but Father went to Sunday School at the First Presbyterian Church on East Orange Street. He always came for the service. A class of the same boys met together through the years, and Miss Dorothy Wickersham was our well-liked teacher. At eleven o'clock, all the family sat together in our pew except my twin sisters, Katharine and Annie, ten years older than I, who sang in the choir.
During part of my teen years, I went to the church building quite voluntarily for another meeting, held at three o'clock on Sunday. In addition, each Saturday morning I met with a different crowd of boys in the YMCA for an hour's Bible Class before basketball, calisthenics, and swimming. All this religious teaching seemed perfectly natural and normal to me, for I had been involved in it as long as I could remember, and I am sure that I never rebelled.
Every evening for years, before going to bed, I said "Now I lay me" and finally graduated from that into my own prayers. In my mind I had a picture of a loving, fatherly God, in whom I had complete confidence. The fact was that I did not need to pray for anything, because Father and Mother took care of all that. My healthy mind and body were busy all day long. Theological questions were not yet disturbing.
There was a genuine affection between Mother and me. Religion was a strong bond of sympathy. Moreover, I give the Geiger side of the family credit for my interest in art. Ever since kindergarten, I had been busy with colored crayons. The following Christmas, Mother gave me art lessons as a present. This time it was Harry Raub who joined me to take private lessons from Miss Martha Bowman.
Miss Martha belonged to a Mennonite family which was quite different from most Mennonites, who were farmers. They were one of the religious sects which came from the Rhineland in Germany, known as "Plain People." As a result of their protest against luxury, their church rules required that they wear the simplest kind of clothing. Buttons, thought of as decorations, were not permitted. They had a great desire to live by themselves and to shun "the world" and because of this they continued to speak a German dialect erroneously called "Pennsylvania Dutch," although it is really Pennsylvania German. Apart from buying their wonderful produce at the Farmers Market, our family had little contact with them.
Miss Martha had studied at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts, and although she dressed simply, she did not wear the Mennonite uniform. The Bowman family conducted a respected technical school of watchmaking. Once a week, when we went for our art lesson, we met the members of the family in their buttonless costumes of sober gray.
Studying with this delightful person not only improved my drawing and designing, but made me consider art seriously as a profession. Unfortunately, the pressure of school and college work blotted out what might have become an important talent.
When he was ten and I was twelve, Kenneth Appel moved out of town into a fine, patrician country house, only a half-mile away. From that time on, we became inseparable. Our tastes were similar. Late one summer we took a walking trip, which none of our other friends would have dreamed of doing. Our interest in hiking was the result of the influence of one Gilbert Roehrig, Boys' Work Director of the Lancaster YMCA, who initiated us into this unusual pastime which in the future was to mean so much to me. The walking trip Kenneth and I planned was to last for a week, and the distances which we covered in a single day were not meagre. From Lancaster, we walked twenty-two miles to Mt. Gretna, followed by a day's pause; then on to Harrisburg with a break of several days, and finally back to Lancaster, twenty-eight miles on the last day.
It was about nine o'clock at night and we were dog-tired, when I saw in the dim distance what I thought was someone on a bike. The shadow swayed gently from side to side. However, when we caught up to the "cyclist," he turned out to be a peddler on foot with his wares on his back, and clearly bearing another load. In spite of his heavy pack and the lateness of the hour, he was feeling fine. "Where are you going, young gentlemen?" he asked with the most unexpected courtesy. We replied that we were going to Lancaster and that we wished we were there. Returning his courtesy we inquired where he was going. Without hesitation, he answered:
I don't know, and that reminds me of a story. One time in the southern end of the county, a friend of mine, whose name was Jerry, was walking along a road. A properly dressed man approached him and asked him the way to Paradise [the actual name of a village], to which Jerry replied, "I'm going that way, I'll walk along with you." Making conversation, the man asked Jerry, "What do you do for a living?" Jerry replied, "I'm a farmhand, and what do you do?" To which the man replied, "I'm a minister."
Jerry said, "I never knew exactly what the work of a minister was." The reply was, "A minister is supposed to show people the way to Heaven."
Jerry guffawed and said, "Think of that!! Supposed to show people the way to Heaven and doesn't know the way to Paradise!"
We resumed speed and left our genial peddler swaying along the road with his happy thoughts which we have never forgotten.
From the time I was ten, in the winter I went three times a week to play games in the YMCA gymnasium and to swim. In the summer, Roehrig organized a camp, and I was always among those who went early to set it up.
When I finished the eighth grade in the Public Schools of Lancaster, I went to Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey, where the best educational opportunities my family could find were available.
Since we saw them only rarely during vacations, Harry and Erle slipped away from our little group, but Kenneth and I became thicker and thicker. I can remember so well that after a whole summer day of being together, I would walk part way home with him, and then he would walk part way back with me.
At Lawrenceville School; body, mind and spirit vigorously exercised daily; started with excellent grades, ended with poor; reviving, building and directing School Camp for underprivileged boys was early practice for First Experiment.
IT IS HARD TO SEE HOW ANYONE COULD HAVE ENJOYED OR profited more than I did from four years at Lawrenceville. Whether it was getting the most out of the excellent instruction, or the exciting games between the houses, taken so seriously by us all, I put all the best of my far-from-brilliant talents into everything I did.
On arrival I was classified in the second form (of five) but during my last two years in Lancaster under Mr. Stamey, a famous disciplinarian, I had developed good study habits and wrote such an excellent paper in my placement exam in history that I was one year ahead in that subject. Since there was no Latin at Lancaster, I was one year behind in that.
On returning from Thanksgiving vacation, we found the Davis House, where I lived, quarantined for scarlet fever, so each of us, since we were confined to the house, was responsible for his own daily progress. At the end of the term, I had the highest grade in Latin, and in English History a special high grade called "1-A with honors." Apparently I did better work without the help of the teacher, for I never had such good grades again, in the three years that I lived in Davis House.
We lived in houses of thirty-two boys each, so that seven teams, provided well-fought competitions in all sports. The Master of inhouse was Pop Keener, a genuine Pennsylvania Dutchman who reached Lawrenceville via Princeton University. The spirit and energy which he put into everything he did were an inspiration to our studies and made us famous for our "house spirit," which meant that we won more than our share of house championships through sheer earnestness.
In my first spring, I practiced with grim conscientiousness for the Junior hundred-yard dash for those under sixteen. I placed fourth against winners who had not practiced at all. So, lacking in brilliance, it was clear that I would have to make my mark in sports through hard work. The mile became my event, and before I left school I was champion.
Football was the real joy of my life. During the three years when I played on my house team at right end, the daily struggles to excel, the hours of practice, the devising of special trick plays, the defeats and victories, produced a whole scale of emotions from the deepest sadness to tremendous exhilaration. Once when we were defeated by a ten-man team, as I reached the showers, I began to cry and couldn't stop for several hours. I could not eat any dinner.
We lived a good life, working hard in the classroom from eight to three, playing hard on the fields from three to six, and studying after dinner until nine-thirty. I fell into bed completely exhausted. When I see secondary students these days driven home in buses in the early afternoon, I feel more grateful than ever that my entire day was filled with constant activity.
Because of the religious devotion of my mother and my continuous YMCA activities in elementary school, when I arrived at Lawrenceville I started at once leading the YMCA prayer meetings. I had no trouble in saying a prayer extemporaneously, standing before the small group that came to meeting. I remember that at my first meeting I made my faith perfectly clear by telling the group that I knew I had accomplished many things with the help of God, that alone I could not have done. I fully shared my mother's strong faith.
Every spring when the independent schools closed, the National YMCA organization held religious conferences at Silver Bay on Lake George, New York, and at Northfield in Massachusetts, one of which I attended regularly. Here the idealistic and religious young were urged to become still more religious and service-minded. It was not very surprising, therefore, as spring approached, during my last year at school, that I asked Dr. McPherson, Headmaster, whether I might start again the Lawrenceville Summer Camp for "Fresh Air" boys, which had been discontinued after the camp buildings had been destroyed by fire. In spite of my youth, it was decided that I should; and with some of my best friends---Joe Carey, Joe Baker, Ted Lloyd and John McLanahan and Kenneth Appel (not a member of the School)---I set out for the lake region of northern New Jersey. The President of the Board of Trustees had bought property for the camp. We found the pond and, to our horror, a beach of gluey mud ten feet wide completely surrounding it. This was where our charges were to swim!
I sent the school a telegram: "Location selected impossible for camping. Are searching for suitable one."
The officials of the school soon had me on the phone to explain that a site selected by the President of the Board of Trustees could not be described as "impossible." I replied that it was impossible because every swimmer would have sunk deep into the mud. Within twenty-four hours, I was authorized to go ahead with our search. Although we had no car, before the end of the week by scouring the area we had found Slater's Pond. It had two miles of crystal-clear water, a fine beach, and above it, a broad, level shelf for the camp, in a good stand of trees. Nearby there was an open field for sports. My early experience in helping repeatedly to set up YMCA camps now stood me in good stead. We had to construct an entirely new camp.
Settlement houses in New York sent us groups of thirty boys, mostly Italians. They came for a stay of two weeks.
The most important activity was swimming; a morning dip before breakfast and longer swims before dinner and supper. Gradually, the boys lost their fear of the water and most of them learned to swim. Their reward for learning was permission to use the rowboats.
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Hours of fishing followed. The younger ones loved most catching what they called "turkels."
A group of larger boys were keen on baseball and were good enough to play the nearby village of Andover. As a result an old village feud blazed forth which ended in bloodshed for two of the town's most prominent gentlemen---aged about fifty. It happened when I was umpire that one of the two remarked to the other, "Andover is sure to lose with that umpire." The other gentleman, an advocate of the camp, grappled in reply and the two rolled down a hill arriving at the bottom with bloody noses.
"Satch" Coffee, the cook, a character from the village of Lawrenceville, aimed to fatten each group. Being accustomed to coffee, bread and pasta, the first meals of cereals, vegetables and meat were generally rejected, but soon the plates were being cleaned and the boys were asking for seconds.
One of the groups contained boys who were much older than usual and not much younger than the camp counselors. Soon after their arrival a group of them decided to beat us up. Their attack was carefully planned. A genuine rough-and-tumble lasted for a few minutes but we were too much for them and afterwards, the big campers acknowledged us as bosses.
As we put the third and last group on the train, we realized how much we had become attached to some of them. All of the counselors seemed well satisfied that they had invested their summer as volunteers.
In the doldrums of Sophomore year religious zeal reached its peak an adventurous trip to New York brought close contact with foreigners for the first time---was deeply impressed with their kindness and humanity.
FRESHMAN YEAR AT PRINCETON WAS MUCH THE SAME AS AT school. Studies and sports kept us busy every minute. A Lawrenceville roommate, Elzie Childs, nominated me for class President but did not see me win. At Lawrenceville, I had been a large frog in a fairly big pond. At Princeton the frog was deflated because the pond was so much bigger.
I had arranged to live with Joe Carey, my Lawrenceville friend, and we had drawn Room 91 in Patton Hall, one of the newer dormitories. We had agreed to contribute a hundred dollars each to buy furniture. The previous occupants had offered theirs at a good price.
I went to Princeton a few days early to get all in order, with the two hundred dollars in my pocket. By this time, I had a great interest in antiques and a practiced eye for quality. I set off for the nearby city of Trenton and soon was gloating in the antique shops. After a wonderful day, I returned to Princeton with beautiful and substantial pieces which I have to this day; a gorgeous George Washington mahogany mirror, a fine set of brass andirons, and a pair of candlesticks, an exquisite small tankard of Sheffield plate, and a fine bowl of Royal Dalton china for the mantel.
It was only a few years ago and a short time before he died that Joe called to my attention that I had spent nearly all of the two hundred dollars, and still our room had no beds, chairs or tables.
I tried out for the freshman football team, but there were fifty other competitors for end. All through the winter and spring, I faithfully practiced running the mile, but never achieved distinction. In studies, I was doing just a little worse than at school. The year passed uneventfully. With the arrival of summer, nearly the same group came back to run the Lawrenceville camp again, and it went off more smoothly than the year before.
Sophomore year was the low point. I seem always to have been a slow reader, finding it especially hard to concentrate. Constantly my thoughts would go off on all sorts of agreeable tangents. Joe Carey and I were living together again, this time in Room 121, Little Hall. Our desks faced one another, and, as he told me later, he would see me gazing into space and believed I was concentrating on Anne's picture. Anne was a Lancaster neighbor with whom I had much in common. We were equally industrious and religious and our platonic friendship was long and happy. I was just scraping through and barely avoided flunking out. One explanation of my difficulty was that my head ached almost constantly because my eyes were supersensitive. Perhaps a more important explanation was my struggle with religion. The detailed description of this crisis I found in a letter to my mother.
Monday, January 19, 1913
Dear Mother:
Last night, which I think was one of the most important in my life, Frank Glick spoke at the YMCA meeting on "Wasted Opportunities," and created a wonderful feeling. After the meeting Frank, Turk Gates, Boo Atterbury, and I went to Turk's room. We talked over the class [1916] and what we could do for it, and came to the conclusion that we would do our best with the help of God. Frank left, and Turk and Boo and I talked about my joining the Volunteer Band [students who volunteered to become missionaries]. I agreed with almost everything they said, and it came out that all my religious experiences had been theirs. They said that if I would give myself over to the Lord completely and ask him where I was to go, there would be only one result, the mission field. I had felt that way for years. I am not sure whether it was a love of adventure or a real desire to serve God. I think it was both. I still had a feeling of fear although I was not sure of what.
As near as I can analyze it, it is just a lack of faith in God. Did I really believe in prayer? Turk said, "Let's pray." We did, and I did my best to give my whole mind up to God. A piano was banging in the next room. Turk prayed aloud, "Oh God, we believe. Help thou our Unbelief." I got up and went out to walk around, and as I had no hat on, I thought people would think I was foolish [it was January 19th, and very cold], or would know why I had my head bowed. Then it dawned on me that I was ashamed to be known as a Christian. I felt as though I must kneel in the street where people could see me to prove to myself that I was not ashamed of Christ. But I think I was more sensible in not doing so.
This was my first step in giving myself to God, but I didn't really realize it then, not until I began to think about it later. It seemed as though some great upheaval must take place within me. I thought that I had not the faith and went back to Turk and Boo and told them. So we prayed some more. Then it dawned upon me that I would be glad to have everyone know that I wanted to be a worker for Christ, but I did not have what Turk said he had, a great joy in wishing to give everyone else what he had, namely, faith. What was more, I didn't think I would get it by signing the Volunteer Card. As Turk prayed, he seemed a little hypocritical to me but only for a while. Boo prayed and his prayer seemed to formulate my ideals. Then it gradually came to me that I couldn't expect any sudden gift of faith. It must come gradually and be worked for, just like anything worthwhile. However, I knew that I wanted to be a Christian worker and I was glad for everyone to know it. I could only get it by standing on what I had gotten already and fighting ahead. We got up from our knees and I said that I was glad to have everyone know how far I had gone.
We walked over to Murray-Dodge Hall to get a pledge card. Max Chaplin was not there, but Turk found a card which "happened" to be just where he could find it. I read it over carefully and thought that I could sign it. I did, and as we walked home that joy which Turk spoke of really came in part. The rigid chest feeling was gone and I felt a companionship with those fellows which I had never hoped to feel. I knew that my college days were going to mean more to me now than I had ever imagined. I went to my room and told Joe Carey. He said he thought it was a great thing to do, but felt I had not waited long enough. Something might change. But I am so glad that I now have a purpose in life, and I believe that I will go ahead and will not lead the mere good but passive existence I have led since I entered Princeton.
When I got up this morning at 7:20, 1 read and prayed, as I expect to do every day of my life. I have taken a big step, but the fight has only begun. I realize how selfish and self-conscious I am, and will begin on that. My thought for today is: even in our social relations we must wipe out self, and to do this we must think of others and have something purposeful in which we can lose ourselves.
We skated this afternoon, and the ice was fine! I have stayed up very late to write this and will suffer for it in the morning. The fight is on and I am glad that it is. I am going to begin by praying for the fellows and by working on Len Sweet as a start.
Donald
James, my elder brother, was studying at Princeton Theological Seminary at the time. He was soon to leave as a missionary to India, and advised me to keep the thing a secret until he had gone, since Father would probably be more reconciled to it then. I believed I would make Mother happy by this step.
But soon my religious zeal was experiencing some difficulties. Biology in sophomore year was followed in the junior and senior years by comparative anatomy and physiology. The theory of evolution replaced Genesis. In psychology I became deeply involved in the mind-body dualism. My mother's religion left so many of the philosophical problems unsolved that fairly rapidly my comfortable faith in the literal Bible was seriously shaken. I went through a perfectly tremendous struggle between my faith in the literal word of the Bible and the teachings of science; a struggle which ended with the inspired word of God being changed to history and poetry.
One of my close friends went through not only college but medical school as well and came out a Fundamentalist. I was completely unable to see how he managed to keep conflicting ideas in separate compartments. But more than anything else, I was struck with what a complex thing the human mind is.
As each student volunteer began to find his life work, he drifted away from the signed and sealed religious objective. By graduation, none of the volunteer band became ministers of the Gospel, although Lennig Sweet and I were soon working in the YMCA in foreign lands.
In view of my feeling about prayer during my sophomore year, it is interesting to see how my attitude toward it was resolved. Eight years later, in 1924, the Buchmanites whose movement was called "Moral Re-armament" or "The Oxford Movement," were holding a "house party" at Winchendon in central Massachusetts. Some enthusiasts for the movement persuaded Madeleine and Kenneth Appel, Leslie, and me, to drive up from Philadelphia. They must have used a lot of pressure to get us to go so far.
When we arrived at the house party and began to appreciate its purpose, I realized that I was no longer able to put my faith in prayer, as they expected. But I was in the middle of a group who were confessing their experiences with prayer. I told them the story of crossing the Mediterranean in 1916 when we could reasonably, have expected a submarine attack at any moment. I said that I was tempted to pray, but since I did not normally ask God to give me what I wanted, I felt that it was cowardly suddenly to do so because I was frightened. The leaders of the movement took care not to include us in the other confession groups that weekend!
The first of my many trips to Europe happened in sophomore vacation. Father was going to Carlsbad, in Czechoslovakia, to take the waters. One of my twin sisters, Katharine, who was devoted to Father, left her newly-married husband to accompany him. I was invited to go along. At that time the freshman and sophomore classes at Princeton had their meals in a dirty old hotel building. The food was about as primitive as the building. There was one saving grace. We could always have all of the cornflakes and milk that we wanted, and some of us ate it three times a day.
The first-class dining room on the Kronprinzessin Cecilia provided an excellence of food and service which up to that time I could not even have imagined. The three of us at our table had one professional waiter to take care of our needs. The cooks must have been equally expert, for everything we were served was perfect.
What with my wonderful appetite and the unbelievable contrast with college food, the six meals a day kept me in a gustorial paradise which continued for the next six weeks while we were on the continent. As some might have done, I never longed for the accustomed American food, but sampled each unusual European delicacy with enthusiasm. Even the farm-baked, huge, round loaves of rye bread---which were actually quite sour---I never had to learn to eat. Compared with the airy tastelessness of American bread, this pumpernickel had as much delicious substance in one mouthful as the American bread had in a whole slice.
On the 4th day of August, 1914, we were staying with Doctor William Shand (the brother of James Shand, my father's partner in business) in England and the declaration of war came as a total surprise. The picture that sticks in my mind of those heart-breaking days was a half-drunken soldier waving good-bye to his family and friends with a whiskey bottle. There was a rush of people trying to get home. Fortunately, our accommodations were for just the right time. The trip was an uneasy one for we were constantly looking for submarines but the slow old boat arrived in New York safely.
During my junior year, one adventure turned out very satisfactorily. Somewhat later I wrote it down as follows:
Back in 1915 there was no exodus from college every week-end, so that on Sunday, the second of February, Joe Carey, Joe Baker, Jimmy Stockton and I were taking the usual Sunday afternoon walk, for Sunday was a very respectable day. We were talking about what we would do with the short holiday following exams. It was Jimmy Stockton who made the stimulating proposal, "Why not go to New York City and spend three days there without any money just to see what will happen." It seemed like a fine thing to do, and I immediately agreed to go along with him.
When exams were over, something prevented Jimmy from going, but I was too intrigued with the idea to let that make any difference; besides, I had already started working on my costume. I hadn't shaved in three days, and as the University barber had told me, I had the toughest beard in the institution; this made quite a difference. I borrowed some old clothes from friends who were smaller than I, and planned to wear tennis shoes in the sub-zero weather.
In New York, I changed my clothes in a small hotel near Pennsylvania Station, checked my bag, and asked the room clerk not to throw me out when I should appear three days later. Although it was four o'clock in the afternoon, I stepped into a restaurant just across the street and had a substantial meal, convinced that it would be a long time until I had another. A ragged little girl standing outside the restaurant was breathless when I handed her all the change that I had left---thirty-five cents. Now I had fulfilled one of the principal conditions of the undertaking: I was penniless.
It was beginning to get dark on that afternoon of February 12 when I started southward on Sixth Avenue in search of the "underworld." As a first hint of it, I noticed a loafer leaning against a door post as I walked rapidly by. Thinking I might get some useful information, I turned and approached him, but before I could open my mouth he beat me to it with a friendly, "Fellow, I ain't got a God-damn cent!" Suppressing an inclination to roar with laughter, I realized with great satisfaction that I had been accepted into the ranks of the down-and-out. Now I had the greatest confidence in my costume. I had improved on the small trousers somewhat, by first making an eighteen-inch slit, pinning it together with safety pins and putting them on over my own.
My new-found friend directed me to the place where he had left his last job, or at least so he said. "Go down to 16th Street and Seventh Avenue where they are building the new subway and tell the foreman of the gang that Jerry Swineford sent you." I started in feverish haste, for it was almost quitting time. Sure enough, there was a small gang of men mixing concrete. The foreman heard my story: I had just come to New York for the first time from a little town out in Pennsylvania. I had no money left but was willing to do anything to get some. He could not give me work himself, but thought he could get me some. We went over together to the boss of a group that was installing huge pipes. The foreman said, "Sure, come back Monday!" I pointed out that Monday was four days off and I had to live until I was paid. "Well," said my fatherly Irish friend, "we'll put you in this bull gang. It's just a muckin' job, but it will hold you over till you get something better."
Then he wrote out a job slip. The company doctor accepted me, and I registered with the timekeeper. By this time I had been a hobo for an hour and had secured two jobs in the depths of a depression.
The foreman asked me if I were hungry. I replied that I was not, as I had just spent my last cent for something to eat; whereupon he handed me a quarter and did not miss doing the same thing each day that I was working there. To my thanks he would always reply, "Young fellow, you'll find it's the best way always to help a fellow when you can. You can pay this back sometime if you want to, but if you never do, it's all right."
I had heard about Macdougal Alley, which was a blind street just south of Washington Square. Here were located in the old days the stables for the great houses in the Square. It was getting bitterly cold as I approached the end of the alley, and all was locked and barred. As I arrived at the end, the last door opened and a little clay-spattered Italian asked me if I was looking for someone. I replied that I would like to get a job cleaning out a studio and be allowed to sleep in it, as I had no place to sleep. He opened the sliding door of the old stable which turned out to be his studio and invited me most courteously to come in. Then he drew up a chair close to a pot-bellied iron stove and heard my story. He immediately gave me fifty cents, saying, "If I had fifty dollars I would give it to you." We talked for a while, and he was always careful not to pry into my affairs. Then he brought out a couple of old suits, but my sculptor was rather short, so the suits were returned to their places. We were feeling very friendly by this time. He told me his name, which was Beniamino Bufano, and showed me several clay figures on which he was working. Indeed, I found great difficulty in restraining my enthusiasm.
Then he took a cardboard box from the table and, from the bottom-most of the letters, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill from its hiding place, saying, "I was saving this for the rent." We started down the alley and went into a second-hand clothing shop. He wanted to get me an overcoat. I insisted that I did not need one. He told me that in order to get a decent job, I must have better-looking clothes than those I was wearing. When I saw that I could not persuade him not to do it, I walked out of the shop, hoping he would come along. He did come, but brought a suit with him.
We returned to the studio, but I refused as politely as I could to put on the clothes. Then he inquired where I was going to sleep; and when I replied that I did not know, we set out for the 23rd Street YMCA.
On the way, we stopped at a lunch counter; and when I ordered a plate of baked beans, he asked the waiter for two portions. Having eaten a huge meal only three hours before, it was with real difficulty that I tried to appear ravenously hungry. Then I noticed he was not touching his beans. When I asked him why not, he said, "You are going to eat these, too.
The twenty-five-cent dormitory at the YMCA was filled, but he consulted their files of cheap lodgings. After a great deal of talking, I persuaded him to let me look for a room by myself. It was time for him to go home, and as I was thanking him, he put something into my breast pocket and started to run off. It was two one-dollar bills. I pursued him and tried to make him take them back, but he only tried to make me take a third. As we parted, he told me to try to keep myself looking as clean as possible and if I needed any help, to be sure to come to see him. This was the last time I saw my sculptor during the three days.
Having heard that the East Side was the location of the "underworld," I walked over and under Brooklyn Bridge entered the toughest-looking saloon I could find. The occupants were perfectly respectable German or Swedish Longshoremen, and although I bought a glass of beer for a nickel and put on a sociable expression, I found they would not talk to me. In fact, they would not pay any attention to me at all.
Next I found Chinatown and was soon having a pleasant chat with a friendly cop. "Is this a dangerous beat?" I asked him. "No, we ain't had a murder here for a year," he replied. Then I inquired if he knew any place where I might be able to sleep. "What's the matter," he asked,. "ain't you got no home?" I said that I had just come to town. "So you got into trouble, did you?" I replied, "Not the kind of trouble you think, I just couldn't get along with my father." "Yes," he said, "I know how it is. You say one thing and he says another. So you went off in a huff, did You?" I said that I had. "Mother crying?" "Yep," I responded.
Then he told me about the Municipal Lodging House and said it was four miles away and if I wanted to get in, I had better hurry. Although I had two dollars and seventy cents and could easily have afforded the five-cent fare, I set off northward at full speed on foot. As I approached my 48th Street objective, it began to snow; and as I ran up the steps of the lodging house, a policeman on the inside locked the door. I knocked vigorously on the glass, and opening the door, he let me in and motioned me to go to a wicket and sign up.
The man looking out of the wicket asked me if I needed to check any valuables. I told him I had a wrist watch, my glasses, and $2.70. "You can't stay here with all that money," he said. Picturing myself out in the snow again, I said, "See here, I have a job and $2.70 but I probably won't be paid for a week." "All right," he said, "hand over the things but don't come back another time." He directed me to the dining room. A large room was filled with long tables and wooden benches. A waiter brought me a big bowl filled with a gray liquid which, of course, was soup, and a slab of bread so solid that I had never seen its equal anywhere outside of Germany.
With the idea of making a good impression, I attacked the food, but with no enthusiasm for this was the fourth meal that I had eaten since four o'clock and it was now just midnight.
The soup was quite clearly collected from restaurants, and rewarmed for the tramps who came for it. I ate what I could, making little progress on the bread, finally hiding it in the bowl.
I was then directed into the cellar where I surrendered my clothing, which was put into a locker, and in return for which I received a nightgown. I was then instructed to take a shower and to get into an elevator. Here I saw two of my associates in their nightgowns. Their faces had the crushed-in appearance which my imagination suggested was caused by a certain disease. I stood as far away from them as possible. When we reached an upper floor, I was ushered by a policeman to the last unoccupied double-decker bed in a large room filled with them.
I was so tired that I immediately fell asleep; and it seemed like no time at all till 5:30 next morning when the big electric bell, on the wall not far from my head, went off with a crash that seemed to throw me out of bed. My roommates were of all ages, colors, configurations and conditions of health. We went down to breakfast, where I heard that their chief occupation seemed to be either laughing or complaining. There were few foreigners among them. They appeared either alcoholics, feeble-minded or for other good reasons economically worthless. I had little opportunity of talking to them, for I had working papers and therefore was turned out on the street as soon as I had finished breakfast, which had the same taste as supper, although oatmeal was substituted for the soup.
When I reported for work, my boss looked me over with an interested smile. [They were mixing concrete to fill in the places that the big mixer had missed.] He asked me if I had ever done anything of the sort before. I told him no, and he said he would give me the easiest jobs if I would try to get along well with the gang. The overwhelming kindness which had been thrust upon me ever since I had put on my bum's clothes did not stop with my gang mates. There were nine of us: seven Italians, a Pole and myself. Although the Pole was the only one with whom I could talk, all of the Italians were most cordial. From the very beginning, I was taken in as a member of the gang, "foreigner" though I was!
Unable to return to the Municipal Lodging House, I had to find shelter for the second night. Fortunately, I knew about Mills Hotel, which had the distinction of being a "flop house" on a grand scale. The charge for the night was 25 cents for a room which was little more than a closet, but did have a cot (although the sheets were dirty) and privacy.
In addition to my room, Mills provided a large lounge with fairly comfortable chairs-most of them filled. Here for the first time on the trip, I settled down consciously to study human nature. Very near me sat a parchment of a man with extremely thick lenses in his glasses.
He was deeply engrossed in a book. I felt I had spotted my first character and waited attentively to start a conversation with him without interrupting his reading. First, I saw that his interest was centered on a chemistry textbook of qualitative analysis, which suggested to me a life-long struggle to become a scientist. Bursting with expectation, I waited until he looked up after quite a long time. Speaking to him in a way which could not be ignored, I said, "So you are interested in chemistry?" His dry-as-dust reply was, "No, I got to read something."
At the end of the second day, I presented myself to the paymaster and told him I had found a better job up-town. As he counted out two days' pay, I thought I heard the clerk grumble something about "a rich man's son." Perhaps my eye was too bright anticipating the birthday party at the Biltmore which was to start next day at five o'clock.
Beginning with the Freshman holidays, Kenneth and I had found new friends in the village of Mountville, a few miles west of Lancaster.
They were Phil von der Smith and his friend from Washington, D.C., Miggie Littlehales. After that we spent all of the holidays together, and our gang often included Phil's entertaining Mother. He had invited us to his party, with the usual spree of theater and luscious meals.
Back at college after the party, my conscience was troubled over Beniamino Bufano, my Italian patron. I wrote him a letter telling him how I had deceived him and made an appointment for a coming Saturday afternoon. I suggested a visit to the Metropolitan Museum and a good Italian restaurant. Taking a train to New York, I found him in his studio. He seemed to have forgiven me entirely for the unnecessary trouble I had caused him. I was most curious to know whether he would have treated any other tramp in the way he had me. So I asked him directly why he had done so. His reply, brief and satisfactory, was, "As a sculptor, I could see by the way you held yourself that you were no bum!" I did take the opportunity to reimburse him for the gift of two dollars and a half and to show my appreciation for his help.
Recently, by chance, I found that Beniamino Bufano is a successful sculptor living in San Francisco. I wrote him, saying I would like to get in touch with him. Back came a deluxe brochure illustrating his sculpture and a letter which said, "Dear Donald: It is fine to find you again after all these years [fifty] since we were both boys in New York." For me, this was a real pleasure.
Some of the questions raised by my almost unbelievable experience were never answered. How many moneyless people in the depths of a depression, in the middle of the winter, would have had money thrust upon them, and also would have received from almost every human being an interested and eager kindness? In addition to the offer of two jobs within an hour of starting, I was given a total of two dollars and seventy-five cents by two different persons, although I had not asked for anything. I was offered an overcoat, a suit of clothing, and room rent for a week. But the most moving of all was the kindness with which my fellow laborers treated their "foreign" comrade.
As one of those Americans who had never lacked for anything, I could never have any doubt in my mind about the fine human quality of "the other half."
Senior year saw the end of the valley-like graph drawn by my academic record for the previous eight years. I started the first year at Lawrenceville with top grades, receiving an A in Rush Latin (two years in one) and an A with Honors in English History. I passed the College Entrance Examinations in English and English History, without having taken the courses on which they were based. In matters of brute memory, I was feeble, but where imagination was required, I could hold my own. During the last two years in school and the first two in college, my marks could scarcely have been worse. Two things no doubt helped to explain the depth of the valley. One was my preoccupation with religion, and the other was the physical exhaustion of running the mile. Beginning with junior year, freed of both burdens, my marks bounced upwards. However, having gained the reputation of being a poor student, it was an uphill job to change it. The course in the History of Philosophy in senior year was one of the "preceptorials" for which Princeton was famous. It consisted of a small group and was conducted as a discussion. One day the weekly papers which we wrote were being turned back to the students. There was one which had no name. It was mine, and to my astonishment, instead of the usual C or D, I found that it had earned an A. From then on, A's were not unusual, and several B's as well.
As the time for graduation approached, I found myself again performing near the top of my class, but I was terribly tired of studying and wanted to do something else. The prospect of six more years of the painful grind in medical school was too much for me. As my later failure in graduate school showed, I was not good enough at reading to pass examinations. In spite of my low grades through most of school and college, I got a good education which I have retained and which has served me well through the years.
The Sunday before Commencement, Mr. Edward C. Carter, American Director of YMCA work in India, preached in Chapel and extended an invitation to Princeton students to serve the British-Indian Army in Mesopotamia as YMCA secretaries. I was one of five Princetonians who accepted the invitation. Mother contributed my expenses and salary.
With the United States not yet in the war, why join a British force half a world away? I was eager to go. The fact that I was mentally exhausted was only a part of my motivation. I had committed myself to missionary service abroad, and this substitute salved my conscience. Moreover, we were the first Johnnies to go marching off, which made us quite important. Some of my best friends had signed up for a year of teaching in China; others were considering volunteering as ambulance drivers. Gradually, a strong feeling grew among some students that the time had come to join the British, who had been fighting for a year and a half.