Ralph Stone Memoir

University of Illinois at Springfield Norris L Brookens Library Archives/Special Collections Ralph Stone Memoir ST71. Stone, Ralph b. 1934 Interview and memoir 5 tapes, 355 mins., 77 pp. Ralph Stone, professor of history at Sangamon State University, discusses his involvement in student activism, civil rights and anti-war movements, and his involvement in teaching innovative and radical educational programs. He also discusses pacifism, the Vietnam War, political activities at Miami University in Ohio, conspiracy trials, and the political atmosphere in the 1960's and 70's. Interviews by Don Richardson, 1972 and Cliff Wilson, 1978 OPEN See collateral file Archives/Special Collections LIB 144 University of Illinois at Springfield One University Plaza, MS BRK 140 Springfield IL 62703-5407 © 1978, University of Illinois Board of Trustees PREFACE I: I ! ' This manuscript is the product of tape-recorded interviews by Cliff I, Wilson and Don Richardson for the Oral History Office, Sangamon State ! ' University in the fall, 1978 and March, 1972. The transcription was reviewed by Ralph Stone. I i Ralph Stone was born in Placerville, Colorado in 1934. From Colorado, Ralph and his mother moved to Moscow, Kansas, and subsequently to Sharon Springs, Kansas, where he grew up on a ranch and wheat farm. His experiences with the Depression and poor working people gave him particular empathy and concern for the disadvantaged. He studied to I! ': be a teacher and has held positions at Southern Illinois University, i I Miami University, and Sangamon State University. He was active in civil rights, education, and peace movements of the sixties, and has exposed his students in his courses to an examination and understanding of radical movements. i Readers of this oral history memoir should bear in mind that it is a 'i transcript of the spoken word, and that the interviewer, narrator and editor sought to preserve the informal, conversational style that is inherent in such historical sources. Sangamon State Univer sity is not responsible for the factual accuracy of this memoir, nor for the views expressed therein; these are for the reader to judge. The manuscript may be read, quoted and cited freely. It may not be reproduced in whole or in part by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the Oral History Office, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Illinois, 62708. :. i ! ' : t Table of Contents Interview with Cliff Wilson, 1978 I: Family Background 1 Growing Up In Kansas 2 Religion and Politics 3 Thoughts on Racism 4 Civil Rights and Civil Liberties 5 I: ! Professional Background: Southern Illinois University, 6 Miami University, Sangamon State University Change in Beliefs 9 Pacifism 10 CORE, SNCCC and NAACP 11 Anti-War Activities 13 Thoughts on Viet Nam 17 Underground Newspapers 20 A. J. Muste and Other Sixties' Leaders 21 More Thoughts on the Anti-War Movement 22 The Cold War 24 The War Resisters League, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, 25 and Women's Strike for Peace Anti-War Demonstrations 25 ' ' I 1 The Gentle Revolution and the Voices of Reason 27 I', ! Miami University Events and Personalities 31 Reflection on Political Leaders 36 Yippies, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin 44 The Peace and Freedom Party; the Socialist Workers' Party 45 The Pentagon Papers 47 Viet Nam 48 Table of Contents Author of The Irreconcilables and the Fight Against the 49 League of Nations Public Affairs Colloquia: Student Unrest 50 The Welfare State 51 Concern and Courses on Radical Movements 52 Conspiracy Trials of Sixties and Seventies 53 Opinions on Drug Use 55 Protest Newspapers, LNS, and Anti-War Music 56 JSO Program at Sangamon State 59 Angela Davis 60 Reflections on the Sixties and Seventies 61 . Interview with Don Richardson, 1972, begins after page 65 of the above interview Radical Activities at Miami University, Ohio 1 Desire for a Student Voice 3 The New University Conference 5 The Administration's Response to The Gentle Revolution 7 Alternative Institutions 8 Ralph Stone, Fall 1978, Springfield, Illinois. Cliff Wilson, Interviewer. Q. First, I should get your full name. A. Ralph Allen Stone. Q. Okay. What is your social background as far as your family is concerned? ! A. Well I was born in April of 1934, in a town called Placerville, i i Colorado. My father was a lead and silver miner. My mother was a ' I> school teacher. My mother had graduated from the University of Colo rado at Boulder a few years before, and had taken a teaching position i in Telluride, Colorado, not too far from Placerville, where she met I that point we moved. My mother and I moved to I.l my father. And from I: Kansas following the divorce of my father and mother, to a small town I. in southwestern Kansas called Moscow, which some have seen as appro I priate to my future beliefs, but--(laughs). That was during the Depression and I was raised mostly by my grandmother. My mother was working for the Farm Security Administration as a traveling represen tative helping farm women mostly, teaching them how to cope with the problems of the Depression. So I grew up in Moscow for the first seven years of my life. My grandmother's husband had died several years before, and so she and her youngest son and I lived together in a boxcar of all things, an old refrigerator car that had been fixed up, and was comfortable enough as far as I was concerned. ! But looking back on it, it seems rather rude. dI i Q. Was your family close? Do you have any brothers and sisters? I: A. Well, I didn't have any full brothers owing to the fact that my I! parents were divorced when I was about a year old. I had a slew of ! t stepbrothers, and stepsisters, and halfbrothers. My mother remarried \I in 1940. They had two children, so I had two halfbrothers. And my : : f stepfather had three children that were living. So you might say thl't I had five brothers and sisters, though the closeness wasn't compara le to what it would have been had we grown up in the same family togeth r. Then I had relationships between my grandmother's children, her youn&est son with whom as I said I lived. Her youngest son was about six yea~s older than I, so our growing up together for about five or six years 1 meant that I saw him as something of an older brother, although he l was an uncle in fact. So I don't know that the questions about clos, ness • . • Certainly there wasn't a large nuclear family that was always close, but it wasn't a divided family in the sense of being a split, fighting family, anything of that sort. , Q. What was your stepfather's profession? Ralph Stone 2 A. He was a farmer and a rancher. He had farmed in southwestern Kansas in the late 1930's, during the Depression, and tried to eke out a living. And in the fall of 1940, after he and my mother were married, they moved to northwestern Kansas, to a ranch near the town of Sharon Springs, where I finished my youth and where my mother still lives today on the same place. We had a half section of land which we bought for nine dollars an acre. Interestingly, I was talking to my mother last night over the phone and was mentioning this interview that was to come up, reminding her as I have several times to do an autobiography, clear up some of the obscure points in my background, and she was relating that when she and my stepfather were married they had a total of twelve dollars to their name. But I suppose that with land nine dollars an acre, that didn't mean much. But we farmed and ranched, during the War years, and made a living. Prices rose; wheat, cattle. Q. What commodities did the ranch produce? A. Well, wheat was raised, dry-land wheat. The rainfall there is about fourteen to fifteen inches a year, semi-arid. Today people are irrigating in large parts of the county, but there was no irrigation at the time, so we raised some wheat, some alfalfa, ran cattle, a few hogs Mostly just tried to live from year to year. Q. What was it like growing up in Kansas? A. Well, you felt isolated. As I look back upon it, I realize that it was a rather isolated, provincial existence. I can illustrate it perhaps with a story. When I first went to college at the University of Kansas, and subsequently returned home at the first vacation, two or three people asked me what it was like back East whether the people in eastern Kansas were friendly. Anything east of Hayes, Kansas was considered part of the East coast, [the] cold urban conglomerate we think of today. You didn't have· to go very far east to be a part of that as far as western Kansas was concerned. So we were isolated, and yet I didn't think of that at the time. It's a small, small community. The county which was a county of several hundred square miles--about forty miles square--the county had about twenty-five hundred people in it, so you didn't see many people. Those people you did see you knew. People knew what other people were doing and it was a typical small town, country life. I didn't particularly care for farm life, ranch life at the time, though looking back I feel rather fortunate growing up on a farm.

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