Word: mather
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Readers who know Henry Miller only by his reputation as the bogeyman of the U.S. Bureau of Customs generally are surprised to discover that in many ways the man is as moralistic as Cotton Mather, and not much more interested in writing fiction. He seems incapable of composing more than half a dozen pages of narrative without dribbling off into the cosmic. In the present collection-largely a sampling of the literary glue that holds together the naughty passages of such works as Tropic of Cancer, Sexus, and Plexus-he interrupts a reasonably interesting travel piece to proclaim that...
While members of the press corps surrounded the Faculty Club waiting for Mather to make a statement, he reportedly slipped out the ladies' entrance of the Club. His statement was issued between the second and third acts of "Porgy and Bess," smash hit of the 1935 season--although Mather does not recall the incident now. This statement again showed a spirit of rebellion. "When the splendid group of patriotic teachers are singled out for treatment as suspicious characters, I rebel...
...signed the oath, but attached a three-paragraph proviso, thus making the entire oath invalid. At the same time, Mather issued another statement, calling the oath "completely antagonistic to the spirit which breathes through the Constitution of the United States and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." (He smilingly recalls, however, that he constitution of the Commonwealth was out of print at the time, and that he "couldn't find a copy of what I was swearing to uphold...
...which I object appears to transfer to state legislatures and to officials appointed by partisan governors a responsibility which has constitutionally resided in non-political quarters," he wrote. The State Commissioner of Education returned Mather's oath, and Mather was faced with the alternative of taking the oath or resigning from the University. He signed the oath, and the controversy ended...
...spring of 1936, during the preparation for the Tercentenary Celebration, an attempted repeal of the oath failed in the House of Representatives. Mather, along with other members of the Faculty such as Max Lerner and F. O. Matthiessen, formed the Harvard University chapter of the American Federation of Teachers...