BRACERS Record Detail for 65422

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Collection code
RA3
Recent acquisition no.
1740
Source if not BR
Mount Holyoke College Archives, Victoria Schuck Papers
Recipient(s)
Schuck, Victoria
Mount Holyoke College
Sender(s)
BR
Date
1950/08/13
Form of letter
ALS(X)
Pieces
2
BR's address code (if sender)
APE
Notes, topics or text

Australian Lecture Tour (1950)

BR apologizes but in his travels has mislaid some correspondence, including who his contact at Wellesley is for a lecture on 1950/11/02. He asks if it would be too much to ask her to find out. BR suggests any of the following topics for his second lecture: "Living in the Atomic Age", "Obstacles to World Government", "The Ferment in Asia", "The Impact of Science on Social Institutions".

BR asks that some of his fee be sent in cash, in small bills, with whoever meets him at the airport, since one cannot take dollars out of England.

BR notes he will be back in England on 1950/08/27.

Source: Mount Holyoke College Archives, MS 0841 74/4/10.

Transcription

BR TO VICTORIA SCHUCK, 13 AUG. 1950
BRACERS 65422. ALS(X). Mount Holyoke College. B&R Hh2020.01
Edited by A.G. Bone. Reviewed by S. Turcon


<letterhead>1
Hotel Esplanade
Perth W.A.
[Address] 41 Queen’s Road, Richmond,
Surrey, England.
August 13, 1950

Dear Professor Schuck2

I am very sorry to bother you, but in the course of travelling round Australia I have mislaid some correspondence. I have all your letters,3 but I have a note to the effect that I am to lecture at Wellesley on November 2, but I cannot find any letter about it, so that I do not know who invited me, or what should be the subject, or what the fee would be.4 Would it be asking too much of you to suggest that you should help me to find out?

In addition to the subjects you know of,5 I could, if socio-political topics6 are desired, lecture on


Living in the atomic age.
Obstacles to world government.
The Ferment in Asia.
The impact of science on social institutions.


It is very kind of you to say you will have me met at the Air Port.7 I will let you know the day and hour as soon as I can.

One small matter: You know that one is not allowed to take dollars out of England, so I shall be very grateful if some part of my fee can be sent in cash equally8 by whoever meets me, and not all in notes of large denominations. I hope this will not be a nuisance.

I shall be back in England on August 27.

Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell.

P.S. Is it necessary to dress for the lectures? I don’t like dressing but will of course do so if desired.

  • 1

    [document] The letter was edited from a photocopy of the signed original in the recipient’s papers in the Mount Holyoke College Archives. The reproduction shows that the letter was written in BR’s hand on the recto and verso of a single leaf of letterhead from the Hotel Esplanade, Perth. The following note (presumably by Schuck) was written perpendicularly to Russell’s text in the left margin of the recto side: “$100 — Limits of Empiricism middle of morning”.

  • 2

    [recipient] A specialist in American government and urban planning, Professor Victoria Schuck (1909–1999) was a member of the Department of Political Science at Mount Holyoke College for 36 years (1940–76). She then served as President of Mount Vernon College in Washington, D.C. (1977–80). In 1950 she was chair of the appointments committee entrusted with attracting a distinguished visiting scholar to Mount Holyoke with funds from the Florence Purington Foundation — under whose auspices BR would lecture at this liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, MA.

  • 3

    I have all your letters Although BR did not keep this correspondence, Schuck kept carbon copies of her letters, which are preserved in the Mount Holyoke College archives along with BR’s signed holograph replies (see RA Rec. Acq. 1740).

  • 4

    I am to lecture at Wellesley on November 2 … fee would be BR had been invited to speak at this liberal arts college for women on the date in question by Mary Coolidge from Wellesley’s Department of Philosophy. His lecture, “The Limits of Empiricism”, was based on the final chapter of Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (London: Allen & Unwin, 1948), pp. 516–27 (see “Brain-Teaser Tackles Essence; Reveals ABC’s of Empiricism”, Wellesley College News, 9 Nov. 1950, p. 4). His fee was to be $100, which Schuck considered “very low” (to BR, 20 Sept. 1950, BRACERS 65423).

  • 5

    subjects you know of “When Is an Opinion Rational?” (42 in Papers 11); “Is Mathematics Purely Linguistic?” (43 in Papers 11); “What Desires Are Politically Important?” (19 in Papers 26); and “The Harm and Good Done by Dogmatic Ideologies” (possibly “Creeds and Ideologies” the last of three lectures on world government presented in Sydney and condensed by BR into section III of 6 in Papers 26). See also BRACERS 65415, 65417).

  • 6

    socio-political topics It appeared that all five lectures BR would give at Mount Holyoke had been agreed by 29 March 1950, when Schuck dispatched him a draft itinerary (BRACERS 65418). But BR’s reply rejected the last lecture on this list, “Can Hydrogen Think?” — even though he had only recently (2 March 1950, BRACERS 654417) suggested it (presumably in reference to President Truman’s announcement a few weeks previously of the American H-Bomb programme). Considering this title “flashy and meretricious” (3 April 1950, BRACERS 65419), he put forward instead “The Physical Conditions of Thinking”, a more obviously philosophical topic (35 in Papers 11), on which he would speak at Purdue University on his last American lecture tour in November 1951. But Schuck definitely wanted BR’s concluding Mount Holyoke address (one of two public lectures; the other three were given to students from different disciplines) to be “political” (24 Feb. 1950, BRACERS 65416). Without explicitly vetoing his alternative proposal, she reported to him (on 24 June) that her committee had been “smitten” by his initial choice, then informed him that “We can settle upon the title of your lecture in the field of political philosophy upon your return from the Pacific”. Clearly BR preferred to resolve this outstanding issue from his Perth hotel room by suggesting four new “socio-political topics” (actually three, since Schuck has already discouraged him from lecturing on world government). In her letter of 20 September (BRACERS 65423) Schuck indicated a preference for “Living in an Atomic Age”, which he had given as a two-part lecture at the University of Melbourne. The student newspaper’s report of its subsequent presentation at Mount Holyoke (“Russell Speaks on Need of Removing Mutual Suspicion to Preserve Peace”, Mount Holyoke News 35, no. 7 [3 Nov. 1950]: 1) is too short to ascertain which of the two parts BR gave in South Hadley, Mass., or whether he delivered a condensation of both.

  • 7

    you will have me met at the Air Port Schuck herself would meet BR at Idlewild airport (see BRACERS 65375). His flight was scheduled to leave London at 7:15 PM on 22 October and arrive in New York at 9:15 the following morning (BR to Schuck, 7 Oct. 1950, BRACERS 65393).

  • 8

    very grateful … some part of my fee … in cash equally The free movement and exchange of sterling and foreign currency assets had been strictly limited during wartime by emergency powers perpetuated by the Exchange Control Act (1947). When Russell toured the United States in October and November 1950, the foreign currency allowance for British travellers abroad was pegged at £50 per annum. This modest entitlement had been withdrawn completely between October 1947 and May 1948, owing to the acute balance of payments crisis, but it was increased to £100 at the end of 1950. Perhaps BR had already used the whole of his 1950 allocation on his trip to Australia for, in again asking Schuck for a small cash advance on arrival, he added that he was “not allowed to bring a single cent of American money” (22 Sept. 1950, BRACERS 65424). It is not known whether BR’s request was satisfied (although see n. 1 above); it was not acknowledged in Schuck’s reply of 4 October, and there is no extant copy of her only other subsequent letter to BR (dated 14 October).

Publication
B&R Hh2020.01. Re B&R C50.30
Permission
Everyone
Image
Transcription Public Access
Yes
Record no.
65422
Record created
Nov 05, 2014
Record last modified
Aug 26, 2022
Created/last modified by
blackwk