One of the things I meant to mention but forgot is that although Hemingway continued to correspond with E.P. while he was in St Elizabeths (I think he wrote about one letter a year), he never did pay a visit in person. Consequently anything he said about the scene on the hospital lawn (and inside the ward, in cold weather) was based purely on newspaper accounts and not a first-hand observation. In a way, I think it is accurate to call the group of disciples "fawning," in the same way that all students of professors tend to be a bit fawning. (One may remember a recent letter posted to this list.) Although he encouraged all the young disiples (not just Sheri) to refer to him as "grampa," we certainly accepted E.P. at his own valuation --- a service his old friends were not willing to oblige him with. As to being dangerous, though... Well, some of us might have been dangerous in our dreams. John Kasper would definitely have liked to have been dangerous, but succeeded only in putting himself in jail as a convenient (but by no means innocent) fall guy for something that would have happened more or less the same way without him. I only met Kasper once, and then quite briefly, after he was already notorious and under indictment. I knew his ex-girlfriend Nora quite well, and she talked about him a lot (a whole lot), but what she said didn't give much insight into him. He was certainly more complicated than people want to present him as. From Humphrey Carpenter's book I learn that that he had graduated from Columbia and had intended to work for a doctorate in English and Philosophy. He apparently had quite mixed feelings about Negroes, having been somewhat attracted to some of those he met in Greenwich Village, while maintaining his Southern prejudices about those in the South. (This was also very much true of Nora, who tended to fawn --- to use a convenient word --- over Black jazz musicians in the D.C. night clubs, and generally get along wonderfully well with the Blacks she encountered, while at the same time being completely racist in her politics.) E.P. seemed to sincerely believe that segregation was in the best interest of Blacks, and to have no ill will towards them, but it seems fairly clear that that Kasper catered to the racism of his Tennessee following. I never met Eustace Mullins, on the other hand. I seem to remember Sheri saying that he was a "dear boy," but then Sheri said that of many young men (certainly including myself!) Nora frequently talked about his book (on the Federal Reserve system), but I don't remember her ever talking about Mullins as a person. Mullins, in any case, eventually became a rather pathetic supporter of right-wing militia groups. There's lots of information about him on the net, although I can't find anything except old history about Kasper. What other "dangerous fawning" characters are we talking about? Bill McNaughton, who edited STRIKE? He was really much more serious about beoming a writer and a scholar than about politics. John Chatel? Give me a break! Me? Moi??? I went along with my father's wishes and went off to college, first to Johns Hopkins and later the University of Arizona to study engineering, later changing my major to mathematics and almost accidentally also picking up a degree in classical Greek. Pound's influence had prompted me to read the memoirs of Thomas Hart Benton and Martin Van Buren and subscribe to the Congressional Record for at least a year, as well as learning Greek and taking a one-year course in classical Chinese, but not to go out and try to incite people to riot. I doubt that Pound had recommended that to Kasper either. It was not E.P.'s style. Publishing books and newspapers was more the sort of action he favored. >From: Jonathan Morse <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Animal House at the Ezuversity >To: [log in to unmask] >Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2000 14:37:05 -1000 > >Understandably, members of this list don't spend much time talking about >John Kasper, Eustace Mullins, or the other political Poundians who hung >around the lawn at St. Elizabeths. In a letter to Pound, Ernest Hemingway >called them "dangerous fawning jerks," and -- for the poetry, at least -- >that does seem to wrap the topic up. Pound was lonely and despised, but >some people were willing to give him their love. It was a questionable >love, but while it lasted it was something. Add a few explanatory lines to >the _Companion_ and let it go at that. > >But fifty years later the lawn is still alive on the Web. No big deal >outside northern Idaho, but offlist I've recently received a distressed >note from a member who has just discovered the nut orchard. So to that >member, and anyone else who's interested, let me offer these informational >links to the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish organization. > >"Hate on the World-Wide Web: A Brief Guide to Cyberspace Bigotry." >http://www.adl.org/frames/front_hate_on_www.html > >"Jewish 'Control' of the Federal Reserve: A Classic Anti-Semitic Myth" >http://www.adl.org/frames/front_federal.html > >Jonathan Morse >Co-editor, H-Net list H-Antisemitism