European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 06, 1948, Darmstadt, Hesse I intended that whatever work i did should be manual As Well. As productive. In order to leave my mind free to think i renounced my u. S. " by Henry Martyr Noel by Lisl Hubman and Michael Vaccaro a native american now a stateless Kassel bricklayer s apprentice explains the reasons for his decision to abandon his Birthright and adopt his present Mode of life Kassel do not hate the United states. Bear no grudge against America or americans. I renounced my citizen ship because to be the citizen of an nation had become for me intolerable and incompatible with my personal convictions. I could no longer honestly remain a citizen of the United states.1i realize i have taken a very serious step. Today i am a stateless person an henceforth i will find myself in a position that is both irregular and in frequent. I am prepared for any or All the consequences of my action. My decision was not made blindly rib rashly. It was the result of a Lon period of deliberation and of an in creasing conviction that we witness i these times the Climax of nationalism. The world today is a spectacle of Sepa rate National political entities each seeking to realize its own private National salvation each desperate to maintain or enlarge its National Power and prestige each imagining itself struggling for its own Well being and betterment. The result of All this is that the acceptance or maintenance of citizenship in any nation is either the tacit acceptance and approval of this situation or ignorance of these Basic facts. As soon As i realized this i realized that i could no longer remain the citizen of any . Believe in human interests and these Are incompatible with nationalization. We can never have a unified an peaceful world As Long As barriers be tween Peoples remain. Unfortunately the first Barrier to Unity is Man s own ego. This is fundamentally the cause of All evil and on a larger scale of All wars. Individually it May result in murder. Collectively it becomes War. In both cases Man seeks to fulfil deepest concern is for self preservation. With the Advance of civilization this has become increasingly hard and he has had to seek new Means to do so steadily building up nationalism. Now however Man has reached the Point where a new civilization is imperative if the human race is to continue. We have made intellectual Progress to which we have not adapted our social Progress. In an Effort to protect our Cul Ture we have steered farther and farther away from the True meaning of society which is not the preservation of any class color Creed or country but of Mankind As a whole. In primitive. Days men formed society because they realized that collectivity was necessary. To their vey survival. Today people have broken up into or ens of political National and religious sects and creeds All seeking individual preservation. This is in direct Antithesis to Universal sur Vival. Each country cannot Hope to preserve itself entirely at the expense of others if the human race is to continue any More than individual Man can. I do not mean that there is any thing lost about the human race. But most catastrophes Are Man made. It was this realization which prompted Meto seek a better understanding of my fellow Man in the Hope a better brotherhood could be born. I suppose my concern with these problems sprang from the fact that i myself led an unstable insecure child Hood. I am Only Twenty four but i feel i have never really had a parents were divorced when i was eleven. Even before that we had trav Elled Here and there a Good was born in Elizabeth new Jersey. When i was nine years old my father was sent to represent a big Oil concern in France. I lived with him at be Havre for two years before returning to was not brought up in any partic ular Faith. My father was a member of the scottish presbyterian Church but i do not remember that my Mother was a particularly Church going woman. I do recall that just before we left France she became very anxious for me to be baptized at the american Church in Paris. I put up a pretty Vio Lent opposition to that. I Felt very Uncertain about my beliefs and Felt might be going into something which i could riot wholly understand. So i re turned to the states without having been cannot say that i have Ever been a believer but neither have i Ever been an atheist. I do not know about god Asi do not know about Many other things which i am trying to find out. I am for the moment an i was born in Elizabeth i consider myself a native of East an Dover new Hampshire because that is where my Mother lived and where spent a Good part of my boyhood years. Yet i never did really Settle in any one place for very Long which As i say May have contributed to my feeling of not belonging to any particular place. I attended. New Hampton preschool and was a pretty Good scholar often first out of a class of sixty or seventy but the boys thought me eccentric because i was always immersed in r books. I was an inveterate Book worm to such an extent that i. Usually spent All my sundays and holi Days Reading in of course when i went to Harvard i ceased to be regarded so much As a eccentric because Well because there were other eccentrics there too i sup pose. But by then anyway i was More interested in human nature than i books in general and except for philosophy i really did not bother to study great Deal. This got me into trouble with the administration. I was put on probation for the second semester of my freshman year and then again for the first six months of my Junior after which i left Cambridge. I really do not think this was because i was thought inane Way stupid or Peculiar or a deliberate non conformist. It is just that i was interested in people and preferred taking time out for Bull sessions and talking to the Fellows in general rather than attending lectures to earn High Marks. I majored in philosophy but i never took my was particularly interested in the philosophy of the greeks at that studied the pre socratic period and Plato and Aristotle. For some time iwas quite a disciple of Aristotle. But i do not think any philosopher has had any profound influence in my Way of continued on next Page s
