Chapter One: “In the Beginning….” 1930s

[When Friends Bulletin was founded in 1929,  there were no more than 400 or 500 unprogrammed Friends scattered throughout the entire Western United States, mostly along what was called the “Pacific Slope.” [1] In 1930, Friends Bulletin listed only eight “independent” Western Friends’ groups: Berkeley, Colorado Springs, Corvallis, Denver, Los Gatos, Palo Alto, Riverside, and College Park/San Jose. There were two only other Western unprogrammed Meetings: Orange Grove Meeting in Pasadena (affiliated with Philadelphia YM) and Villa Street Meeting  (affiliated with Iowa Conservative YM).

Although Friends Bulletin started as a newsletter serving the College Park Association , there was soon talk of its becoming the official publication of all independent Friends. In 1930, Friends Bulletin published a directory of all “united and unaffiliated” Friends meetings in the United States and Canada. Some of these Meetings expressed the desire for Friends Bulletin to become an “organ of the Independent Meetings ,” but the editorial committee decided not to take on this role. Nonetheless, twenty copies of Friends Bulletin were sent to each of the independent Meetings. It is clear the Friends from across the United States were watching the developments of independent Western Friends very closely,  and that Friends Bulletin was seen as an important tool for communicating among this novel and burgeoning offshoot of Quakerism.

In 1934,  Friends Bulletin became the official publication of the Pacific Coast Association  of Friends, which included Friends from unprogrammed Meetings in Washington, Oregon, and California. Its first editor, Howard Brinton, wrote of  the reconstituted Friends Bulletin: “This newsletter aims to promote acquaintance and understanding among those who are affiliated with the ‘Pacific Coast Association of Friends,’ or who share its ideals.”[2]

William Lawrence wrote an editorial describing these ideals,  as well as the role of Friends Bulletin in fostering unity among independent Western Friends:

The potentialities which lie within the concept of the Pacific Coast Association  of Friends are full of interest and inspiration for all who are in sympathy with the association. It is not a movement, a new denomination, nor another Yearly Meeting. It is not an official spokesman for the Society of Friends nor any branch of the society on the Pacific Coast.  It is a banding together through mutual interest and concern of all Friends and others in sympathy with Friends’ principles. Each person may become a member upon his own affirmation and each meeting or group may affiliate with the association or not as they may elect.  The association does not seek to commit its members nor the affiliated groups to any set of stated principles or creeds. Each member is free to make his or her own testimony, and, without the stigma of vacillation, to grow in grace according to his own inner light….

One of the most important steps which the Association has undertaken is the publication of a paper or bulletin. This will afford an opportunity for all Friends to be informed about Friends elsewhere on the coast.  It will furnish a medium for the publication of papers read at annual and other gatherings. Other contributions of common interest will be made available for careful study by all who are interested.  The bulletin will become a cementing and unifying influence to the extent that Friends lend it their support.[3]

This prognosis for Friends Bulletin  was confirmed by Phillip Wells, a physician who became involved with the Religious Society of Friends in the late 1920s. His “eye witness” account, written in 1997, when he was in his late ’80s, shows how the founding of Friends Bulletin and Pacific YM were intertwined.]

“The Founding of Friends Bulletin and Pacific YM  by Phillip Wells

Friends Bulletin, May, 1997

ost Friends in the three western unprogrammed Yearly Meetings know that they began with the Pacific Coast Association of Friends. This started in the living room of Howard and Anna Brinton  at Mills College in Oakland in 1932. It was a small gathering of isolated Friends from the few unprogrammed Meetings in Washington, Oregon, and California. They decided to meet each summer for a two or three day conference. They published a four-page bulletin to provide a link with all like-minded Friends. Howard Brinton  was the first editor. When he and Anna moved to Pendle Hill  [in 1936], Robert Dann of Corvallis took over the job.

 My first contact with Friends was with Palo Alto Friends  and Augustus Tabor Murray in 1925-26. Augustus Murray  led me to the poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier, which I have never forgotten and still use. I joined Friends in Berkeley in 1932. Marguerite and I were married there in 1933, with a wedding breakfast in the living room of Howard and Anna Brinton. Their home had been a home-away-from-home for Marguerite for five years.

When my work as a doctor brought us to the Pasadena area in 1936, I became active in Orange Grove Meeting and the Pacific Coast Association. I soon took over the duties of editor of the Bulletin from Robert. As my practice grew, more of the editing was taken over by Jean Gerard of Orange Grove Meeting. The Bulletin was the material link between isolated Friends and Meetings; it drew the Association together and helped it grow. The only other body that functioned between yearly gatherings was a visiting committee which found it difficult, if not impossible, to act.

As interest grew, and as Friends became more aware of one another, the Bulletin grew. Ed Sanders was paid a small sum to be the editor. I remained as chairman of the Bulletin Committee. One of the things I tried to do was to visit each of the developing Meetings in Southern California once a month with any other Friends who could come along. These were Claremont, Riverside [now Inland Valley], Los Angeles, and the unprogrammed meeting on the Whittier campus.

   The summer gatherings had grown to about 150 Friends, rotating between the Northwest, Northern California, and Southern California. There was growing interest in forming a Yearly Meeting. There was also much interest in the Bulletin, and in correspondence and visits among Friends. Howard Fawcett and Eubanks Carsner of Riverside Meeting were particularly enthusiastic.

Ed Sanders  and I tried to bring this all together. Howard Brinton gave us help and encouragement from Pendle Hill . In 1946 a group of Orange Grove young Friends bought a nursery and training school, which we named Pacific Oaks [see p. 156]. We arranged an Education Conference at the school. This was to be followed by the Pacific Coast Conference, at which time we hoped that we would settle into a Yearly Meeting.

One of the difficulties was that Rufus Jones, a weighty Friend from Philadelphia, was opposed because no Yearly Meeting had ever been set up this way, without the approval of another Yearly Meeting. He was also afraid that our action would offend Friends of California Yearly Meeting [now Friends Church Southwest Yearly Meeting]. Ed Sanders  and I went to see the superintendent of California YM and the pastor of Whittier Friends Church. They assured us that they did not object so long as we did not set up Meetings in competition with their churches. Then I flew to Philadelphia, where Howard Brinton  and I talked with Rufus. After we had explained the situation, he was entirely supportive.

 Howard Brinton  came to the Education Conference and Pacific Coast Association . He brought with him three Friends from British Columbia: Dorothy Lash, Martha Vallance (from Victoria), and Peg Musket (later Margaret Lorenz). They were ready to help with the formation of a Yearly Meeting.

The clerk was Verne James of Palo Alto Meeting. He was substitution for Esther Rhoads, who had gone to Japan after Hiroshima. We adopted a minute saying we would meet the next year in Palo Alto as Pacific YM. That was in 1947—fifty years ago.

The Yearly Meeting included Meetings from Canada to San Diego, Arizona, Honolulu, and even Shanghai. The Shanghai Meeting was suppressed by the revolution in China in 1948. Howard Brinton  encouraged the Mexico City Meeting to join with us, which they did.

The Meetings that joined us had been recognized as Monthly Meetings in various ways: the Canadian Meetings, by Canadian Yearly Meeting; Orange Grove , by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting  (Hicksite); University, by Indiana Yearly Meeting; Riverside and Claremont, by the Friends Fellowship Council. These connections were given up in  the next two or three years, except for the Canadian connection, which was very inactive. Willamette Valley  Association and College Park Association had recognized each other. Los Angeles Meeting asked to be recognized by Pacific YM, which we did as one of our early items of business. Friends of Pasadena Monthly Meeting (Villa Street) of Iowa Yearly Meeting, Conservative, were very active in the Pacific Coast Association and in the movement towards formation of the Yearly Meeting, but they were unable to persuade their Meeting to join.

At the meeting in Palo Alto we began building the structure that is Pacific YM . During the early 1970s it grew and divided into four parts: Pacific, North Pacific, Intermountain, and Western Half-Yearly Meeting of Canadian Yearly Meeting. This has been a healthy development for the Society of Friends. Friends Bulletin served as a useful tool in this process, particularly during the early years.

Highlights of Western Quaker Life in the 1930s

[When Friends Bulletin was founded, unprogrammed Western Friends were few in numbers and widely separated geographically, but their fellowship was rich and fulfilling, as reports in the magazine make evident.

A salient characteristic of Western independent Quakerism was (and  is) its freedom and openness to a diversity of viewpoints. A 1934 report from Friends in Corvallis notes :

The spirit of entire freedom in thought and expression is enjoyed by all. The group is composed of Friends, friends of Friends, individuals with a Quaker background, and others who are sympathetically inclined.[4]

During this period, many independent Western Friends saw themselves as playing a unique and significant role in the Religious Society of Friends. As William Lawrence observed,  “Friends elsewhere are watching the development of [the Pacific Coast Association] with keen interest, no doubt expecting something new to come from us.”[5]

 Many of the concerns expressed in the early issues of Friends Bulletin still seem relevant today, such  fostering Quaker youth and service work[6]; overcoming misunderstandings between pastoral and unprogrammed Friends; and promoting social justice and peace-making.

Among other concerns, we learn that a Peace Caravan  sponsored by the Pacific Coast Association, consisting of three college students from Orange Grove  Meeting, spent eight weeks traveling around the West Coast, visiting Friends, and speaking to 10,000 people about world peace.

The Peace Caravan program was started by the AFSC  in 1927. Each summer the AFSC selected young men and women interested in promoting world peace, loaned each team a second-hand car, gave them special training at an institute of international relations, and sent them to rural areas to educate individual citizens and church groups to the need for world peace. The Pacific Coast Association participated in this program and sent a team of Orange Grove young people on a peace caravan in 1933.]

Peace Caravan, AFSC Archives

 “The Governor Sees A Symbol. The Quakers See A Man”: The Thomas Mooney Concern

Friends Bulletin, May, 1930

[One of the major social concerns of California Friends during this period was the case of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings, labor organizers accused of planting a bomb during a San Francisco preparedness parade which left six killed and forty wounded in 1916. Sentenced to death under questionable circumstances, Mooney was later given a life sentence after a considerable uproar from organized labor.

Howard Brinton , William James, Hannah Erskine , Frederick Anderson and Arthur Heeb (one of the first editors of Friends Bulletin) were appointed by the Berkeley and Palo Alto Meetings to interview Governor C. C. Young of California on behalf of the release of Thomas Mooney. Here is a report of their efforts to link “mystical religion” with social action.]

he whole world knows how actively during the war and after members of the Society of Friends engaged in reconstruction work.  A survey made by a friend in the College Park group of meetings found that out of sixten young Friends thirteen saw service with relief units in Russia, Hungary, France, Germany, and other European countries. This was a notable project in good will, so far-reaching that it cannot be estimated.

Can these young Friends be trusted at home to engage in critical aid exacting social reconstruction? Most Friends think so.  Rightly understood the recent visit of six Friends, from these meetings to C. C. Young, the Governor of California, on behalf of Tom Mooney, was a project in forwarding good will.

 Nothing in the history of the State since the Civil War has so sharply divided people as this celebrated Mooney case. For the past fourteen years, ever since the bomb explosion in San Francisco, the guilt or innocence of Tom Mooney  and Warren Billings, two aggressive Labor organizers, tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for this crime, has set the people of California into two mutually hostile camps.

The sharp division in thinking on this subject is deplored by Friends. The case is the source of bitterness and misunderstanding.  Friends believe that when any topic becomes too hot for quiet and earnest discussion, something is wrong. The subject has been taboo in many circles for so long that Friends have been cautioned lest troubles should befall them if they followed the Mooney concern.

Knowing this to be the situation, Friends who believe in and practice the mystic type of religion feel that earnest application of their principles will bring about a different state of mind.

To that end they approached the governor who received them in a very gracious manner. Friends appreciate how difficult this case has been made for the chief executive by mutual misunderstanding….

As the Governor has stated that he will do nothing with the case until the Supreme Court acts in the Billings pardon appeal, Friends feel that they have a most important concern in continuing to present to the people of California and to the Governor what type of men Mooney and Billings are today after languishing in prison for fourteen years. 

To that end a number of Friends have had long talks with Mooney. They feel he is not a surly vindictive man in prison.  Hours have been spent with him and never a word of ill will against those who have deprived him of so many years of freedom has been uttered. He comes pretty near being of the nature of the Man of Forgiveness. He is a man of manly bearing, sweet natured, with a very intelligent sense of his own situation. If released, we believe he will make a good and useful citizen of the State.

Unfortunately, the Governor has never seen Mooney.

The Quakers see a man. The Governor sees a symbol. Here is the issue.

The young Friends who bear this concern ask for the cooperation of sincere and earnest people everywhere and shall heed the wise counsel of all Friends in the delicate task  revealing to the people and the Governor what manner of men Tom Mooney  and Warren Billings may be. Quakers traditionally have known prisoners. They are aware of the gulf that separates prisoners in the minds of men.  They are for the most part good judges of men in difficulties and can see through symbols that sometimes stand between men.

These Friends bespeak the confidence that people have in Friends’ projects and trust it will not be withheld in this endeavor to promote good will. They believe that goodwill is the key that can unlock the closed doors of hatred and bitterness and misunderstanding, the occasion for all strife and hatred and war.  They propose to apply it in their concern for the release of these victims of prejudice and war hysteria.

 [Friends met with the governor, but their arguments had no apparent immediate effect. Mooney was finally pardoned in 1939. After his release, he went on tour briefly under labor auspices. He spent his last years in St. Luke’s hospital in San Francisco, suffering from bleeding ulcers.]

Growth of The Pacific Coast Association  

[Besides being editor of Friends Bulletin, Howard Brinton  served as first clerk of the Pacific Coast Association of Friends (PCAF) . He and his wife Anna (a classics professor at Mills College and the granddaughter of Joel Bean) provided leadership to this newly evolving group of Friends.

By 1935, the mailing list of PCAF had grown to 400 names. In that year, approximately 100 Western Friends attended the PCAF conference, three automobile loads coming all the way from Oregon, five hundred miles away!

During this conference, the major issues facing unprogrammed Western Friends were addressed with remarkable clarity by some extremely “weighty” Friends.[7]

The first topic was, “The Principles of the Society of Friends.” For the first speaker, Phillip Starkey, the distinguishing characteristic of Quakerism was its openness to new ideas and insights—in other words, its liberal spirit. For Howard Brinton, the most important Quaker quality was “group mysticism” grounded in Meeting for worship.

This conference also explored “The Future of Independent Groups.” A prime concern was membership. Since openness and inclusiveness were critical to this movement, it was decided that any one who wished could be a member of the Pacific Coast Association while at the same time retaining membership in any other religious body. However, the Conference also decided that membership in the Religious Society of Friends could only be conferred by a local Meeting.

Even though the Pacific Coast Association never became the “umbrella group” that some hoped it would be,[8] Western unprogrammed Friends continue to avoid exclusive affiliations and to work on building bridges among different branches of Quakerism (see Chapter Seven).

Finally, the conference addressed important social questions of the day, such as the first rumblings of war in Europe and Northern Africa, alcohol abuse, and racial intolerance. It ended by focusing on the meaning of worship. Augustus Murray wrote:

We meet in silence, not because silence is in itself worship, but because, when we gather to seek some new revelation of God and await in prayerful expectancy for an outpouring of His spirit, prearranged speech seems almost an impertinence; and we wait for the promptings that come from Him.

While contemporary Friends would avoid Murray’s sexist language and  include women as well as men on a panel discussion of this nature, many would none the less resonate with his deep spiritual understanding of Quaker worship.

Since this conference brought together some of the “weightiest” of Western Friends, we will provide a brief description of Augustus Murray  and the Brintons.

Augustus Murray was probably the best known and most respected elder of the Western independent Friends’ movement. David Le Shana , an evangelical Quaker historian,  paid  Murray this tribute:

For forty-eight years he was connected with Stanford University and gained worldwide recognition as a classical scholar and was known everywhere among scholars for his translation of Homer for the Loeb Library. Augustus Murray  also served as president of the [College Park] Association, giving valuable guidance to the organization. Rufus Jones called him ‘a Friend of the deeply convinced, thoroughly seasoned, elder type of Quaker.’ His emphasis upon worship was rich and significant. When Herbert Hoover was elected President of the United States, Augustus Murray  left California for Washington, D.C., and served as a spiritual counselor and ‘pastor’ to the President.[9] In a letter to Philadelphia Yearly Meeting  just prior to his death, he wrote, “Communion with God is the one true source from which a group can gain clarity of vision and unity of purpose”.[10]

Howard Brinton  came from well established Eastern Quaker family and moved West when he married Anna Cox, the granddaughter of Joel Bean. A disciple of Rufus Jones,  Brinton taught at Earlham, Guilford and Mills Colleges. Like Robert Barclay in the sixteenth century, Brinton was a great systematic thinker and a prolific writer. One of his important contributions was his ability to shape twentieth century Quaker experience into a coherent body of ideas. He is the author of numerous books and articles about Quakerism, including the classic, Friends for Three Hundred Years (1952).

No account of Howard would be complete without mentioning his wife Anna. When Anna passed away in 1969, Henry Cadbury paid the following tribute to Anna and her husband:

With the passing of Anna Brinton on October 28, 1969, the Society of Friends lost one of its most colorful and useful personalities. Born in 1887 in California as Anna Shipley Cox, a member of the College Park Association of Friends, she was educated in California except for two years at Westtown School and one year in Rome. She received her degrees up through the doctorate at Stanford University and became a college teacher of the classics at Earlham College and Mills College. She married Howard H. Brinton in 1921, and they remained colleagues at Earlham and Mills and after 1936 as directors at Pendle Hill. Four children were born to them.

This scholarly couple has ercised profound influence on the education and outreach, including ecumenical contacts, of Quakerism. They met in 1920 in Germany during the Anglo-American relief operations there. During 1931-1932 they were fellows together at Woodbrooke Settlement, England. They shared service in India and China in 1946 and in Japan in 1952-55. For more than thirty years Anna Brinton  was involved in countless ways on the board of directors and the staff of the American Friends Service Committee .

   Those who came into acquaintance with her at Pendle Hill  or elsewhere will have varied and vivid impressions of her personality. Each friend would have a different reminiscence or emphasis.

    I was attracted by her unique manner of speech, her brief but telling allusions to literature and history, and her ever-helpful service to the publications of other Friends, as well as her own careful writings. She combined the easy and friendly counseling to individuals with effective participation in collective Quaker enterprises or communities.

   She and Howard Brinton  served as foster parents of Pacific YM, which was organized in their home and strengthened by them even after they removed across the continent.[11]

The Brinton

E-mail: friendsbulletin@aol.com