HumANist society of New Mexico

A HISTORY OF THE HUMANIST SOCIETY OF NEW MEXICO (the early years)

By Laverne Rison

April 2004

INTRODUCTION

I was chosen to write a history of our organization for two reasons. I am a charter member of this group and since I served as president in 1991-92, I have been keeper of the records. Make that three reasons: Our present president, Jerry Wesner wants to know where we come from; and how far we've traveled to get to where we are today.

It all began when a native New Yorker , a more recent transplant from Florida, master gardener and socialist- humanist; Sidney Teller, moved to Albuquerque and was dismayed to discover there was no Humanist organization for him to join. Sidney was born a Jew and abandoned that religion as a boy.

His mother was having a baby and suffering terribly for it. He asked his father how a loving God could allow her to suffer so. The answer was one he could never accept, "She has to suffer because Eve sinned."

While he no longer practiced the religion he was born to, Sidney could not escape the fact that he was still, to die-hard bigots, a Jew. Hitler's Germany made no distinction between believers and unbelievers. If you were born to Jewish parents, you were sent to the gas chambers or abducted into slave labor, where your job would be to help Hitler win his war. He wanted a Humanist Society in Albuquerque because, he explained, "I'd feel safer with one I could belong to."

Sidney contacted the American Humanist Association to inquire how he might go about organizing an affiliate in New Mexico. That was in 1985. He was informed that there had been a New Mexico Humanist Association here from 1978 to 1981. Since the AHA still had a copy of its charter, he could decide whether to begin with a new application, or opt to revive the original group, which was not dead, merely "in abeyance" since the treasurer turned their money over to the AHA in 1981. AHA put Sidney in contact with Cora Cooper, whom they appointed an Advocate, ostensibly to make certain this newly formed Humanist Society of New Mexico was not to be an embarrassment to the National Organization.

Cora was a charter member of the original group; and since that's the only charter in my files; I must assume that Sidney took the course of least resistance and decided to go with the original rather than begin anew.

However, I have in my files another letter from the AHA where they compliment Sidney on beginning a new Humanist Society of New Mexico; and in which they recognize the following members: Sidney Teller, Cora Cooper, Iva O'shaunesy, Donald and Sally Thompson" Lois Kimbrell, Laverne Rison, and Arthur G. Suber. Those are the eight who are charter members of our present organization. As I said, Sidney met Cora through AHA. He met Iva O'shaunesey and Art Suber through Cora. He met the Thompsons through the peace center. And he contacted Lois Kimbrell and me though our letters to the editor of the Albuquerque Journal.

That's how it all began. One man, Sidney Teller, wanted to belong to a local affiliate of AHA because "he'd feel safer that way." Since there was no organization for him to join, he got together with a few disparate individuals, started his own.

THE FAILED HUMANIST SOCIETY OF NEW MEXICO

That first Humanist Society of New Mexico began after UNM Professor of Philosophy Archie Bahm was named Humanist Pioneer of the Year by the AHA. He declined to travel to New York to accept the award as his wife was ill and he didn't wish to leave her even for a little while. They said, "Fine. We'll honor you on your own turf." Another problem. There was no local AHA chapter in which to present the award. The AHA got in touch with long-time activist Cora Cooper, who was asked to organize the event. In so doing she brought together the rudiments of a brand new Humanist Society of New Mexico. Cora was aided by Beth Fennel, who was active in both the AHA and The Humanists of Arizona. Beth and Cora became fast friends; and later, when Beth became the second wife of internationally famed Humanist, Corliss Lamont, Cora became his friend as well.

But this is about Archie Bahm and the budding Humanist Society of New Mexico. Archie later became a member of our newer group; and because he's one of the important Humanists with whom we've been associated. Let me tell you a bit about him.

From 1948 to 1973, Archie taught in the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Mexico. In 1949, he organized a Humanist Society of Albuquerque which lasted four or five years till it merged with the Unitarian Church. Archie published twenty-two books on Philosophy and/or Religion. His main academic interest was in comparative philosophy, particularly concerning similarities and differences among the religions of the West and the ancient religions of1ndia and China. In pursuing that interest, Archie made many trips to India and China, where he spoke and submitted papers at many of the leading Universities in those countries.

So it happened that, because the AHA wished to honor one of its outstanding philosophers in 1977, a like-minded group of New Mexicans came together, and in April of 1978, a charter was issued making them an affiliate of AHA.

There was from the beginning a pull between the atheists in the group, whose main order of business is always to keep religion from stepping on people's toes and interfering with their civil rights; and the Humanists, whose concerns cover a lot more territory than that. That pull finally caused the atheists to break away and form a separate group, leaving the Humanists with too few active members to keep their organization alive. The Humanists gave up and turned their treasury over to AHA in 1981.

An interesting sidelight came with one of their last meetings as a combined organization when their speaker was the infamous Madilyn Murray O'Hare. A small group of born again Christians took the front seats; and one of them stood up in the middle of her presentation and threw a pie in her face. An arrest was made and there was a lot of anger that those good people should be arrested for doing what any God-fearing Christian has a duty to do: Stand up and confront the devil's advocate.

I was new to Albuquerque at the time and not yet acquainted with Cora or any other Humanists; but the controversy struck me as something I could shed some light on. That's when I wrote my first letter to the editor of the Albuquerque Journal. "If a Catholic Bishop came to town," I argued, "And somebody threw a pie in his face, would there then be an arrest?"

Four years later, it was another letter to the editor, "Dr. Reagan, the Charming Quack," which made Sid Teller think I was in my heart a Humanist, even though I didn't know it at the time.

FEELING OUR WAY; JUST GETTING STARTED

We were a group of strangers; each not sure what the others' priorities might be; so we decided to begin with a loose organization with a board of directors and nobody with the sole authority to do much of anything. The board of five would be elected from a slate of seven. I agreed to have my name put in nomination; but when I discovered on the day of the vote that five would be chosen from a slate of six; I changed my mind. "This amounts to rejecting the one rather than electing the five," I argued. "I therefore withdraw my name from the list and move that we accept the remaining nominees by acclimation."

Those elected to the board were Sidney Teller, Eric Schluter, and Feerovz Jafari, John Geohegan, and Lois Kimbrell. That was July 26, 1986. That governing board met later to elect John Geohegan their chairman and Lois Kimbrell (as she recalls because she was the only woman present) secretary. Eric Schluter would serve as treasurer and Feeroyz Jafari as newsletter editor. Sidney Teller had no definite duties but being the prime mover of the entire operation, he assumed he'd go on as before and see that speakers were lined up, meetings were held, and refreshments were served.

Cora Cooper, who was our AHA advocate, had this to say, "Sid is not permitted to take on all the chores himself, which he will try to do. The old chapter tried-ruse a program chairman, but learned that each member of the committee was eager to help with programs; so we did it by the whole committee."

True to her concerns, Sid did try to arrange for a program (getting me involved in the act) without first consulting the entire committee; and so began our first major disagreement.

Sid asked me to line up a speaker for the next meeting. I contacted Gordon McClure, who agreed to be our speaker. Then John Geohegan called Gordon telling him I had no authority to arrange for speakers without ago ahead from the committee. Gordon called me, saying the deal was off. I called Sid and said, "If you ask me to do a job, you either let me do it, or find somebody else." The committee did want Gordon for a speaker. We'd heard him before and he always had something interesting for us to think about. They just didn't want Sid telling me to set up the talk.

Gordon McClure is a retired physicist from Sandia Laboratories, whose main job was designing nuclear weapons. He worked there for many years without thinking the project through to its final phase. If one of those weapons should be used, a city would be destroyed, most of its people either maimed for life or killed in an instant. The workers at Sandia each have a little piece of the puzzle to think about. Not only that, they're not allowed to talk with the other employees or anybody else about what they're working on. Then one day, Gordon's grown son confronted him with a question, "What do we need with1000 nuclear bombs?"

Gordon gave it some thought, took an early retirement; and begin writing letters to Congressmen, the President, Newspapers; and he began giving speeches (free of charge) to anybody who would hear him out. We were a small group, but an ideal audience. We were intelligent, eager to listen, and much in agreement with his newfound distrust of the atom bomb. I tell you this about Gordon because after coming back for talk after talk, he decided to join our group; and a few years later to serve as president.

Back to our problems with the board. I told Sid that we needed to write up some by-laws in which people were elected to definite offices with definite duties. The board could not dispute the fact that any organization needs by-laws; so we formed a committee for that purpose. I was on the committee, along with Sid, Lois, Cora, and John. John preferred to stay with the old looser arrangement, but after that fiasco with Gordon McClure the others agreed with me. We would elect four officers: a president, vice-president, treasurer, and secretary. The president would then appoint three chairmen of standing committees, each with full voting privileges of those elected.

We have amended those by-laws a couple of times; but the governing board arrangement has worked so well that we've kept it ever since. Under the new rules, the vice-president would be in charge of programs. We did limit terms to one year so we'd be able to get rid of anybody we didn't like.

As it happened, our first elected officers served just half a year. For some reason we decided that October was a better month for electing officers than March. The real reason was probably that those wary of the new by-laws wanted a chance to bailout early in case of disaster.

These were our first officers elected by the full membership: President: Kent Langsteiner, Vice-president: Lois Kimbrell; Treasurer: Peter Manchester; Secretary: Laverne Rison.

As we became an established organization; people at the university took notice of us. (We were meeting once a month at the school of law.) We had no difficulty finding prominent people for speakers, although we paid them nothing more than a cookie and a cup of coffee. We were a small group, but a speaker likes nothing more than facing a group of intelligent listeners who understand what he has to say and is in sympathy with his position.

By November third, 1986, our numbers had doubled! (That's from eight to sixteen.) By the beginning of 1987, it had doubled again.

These are some of the speakers we heard that year:

• Kang Zeng from China joined me in presenting a program on "The Morality of Population Control"
• Joan Gibbon, of UNM Law and Medicine and ethicist for St. Joseph's Health Care; and Gaynor Wild of UNM Department of Biochemistry, presented a program on Medical Ethics (Dr. Wild would become a member of our society the following month.)
• Ken Couch, who teaches at Del Norte High School, spoke on Moral Education in the schools.
• Kendrick Frazier, editor of Skeptical Enquirer, spoke about Science and Pseudo Science
• Fred Strum, Professor and Dean of Arts and Sciences at UNM spoke about Indian Pueblo Philosophy.
• UNM Professor Paul Jones, who was imprisoned by the Gestapo in 1944 and the Stalinists in 1948, spoke on The Status of Democracy in the World.
• Sally Alice Thompson, (a charter member of our group) and Liane Adams, who participated in The Great Peace March from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. told of their adventure.
• Jane Slaughter, UNM Professor in Women's History and Modern Italian History, spoke on Feminism: Faces Post-Feminism: Ethics, Issues, and Tactics

I could go on listing our speakers for another 13 years; but you get the idea.

In our growing membership, we picked up Sidney and Marcia Stone. Sidney is an astrophysicist, recently retired from Los Alamos. These two offered the use of their home for our once a month informal meetings, thus relieving Sidney and Ethel Teller of one of their many duties. We also picked up Henry Weihofen, retired professor of law at UNM (and later to become president of our Humanist Society of New Mexico). Henry introduced us to Leland Franks, a practicing attorney at law who would serve as our president when we needed him most.

Under Lois Kimbrell's presidency, in 1991, we decided to present an award to an individual in the community who had done something the past year which we Humanists consider a benefit to society, (much as the AHA presents its Humanist of the Year Award to people within or outside its organization). That year we chose a high school student, Josh Finkenberg, for challenging the Boys State requirement that he take an oath that he is not an Atheist; or be barred from participating in that event. Josh and his parents filed suit against The American Legion and the Albuquerque School System, and won. At this writing, we've only presented that award to an outsider one other time.

In January, 1992, Cora Cooper hosted a fiftieth anniversary party for Sidney and Ethel Teller. That was one of the best attended parties in our history; and we made it a gala event. I tell you this because I want you to know we loved Sidney and Ethel and could never understand how they came to distrust us later.

In August of 1992, we elected Henry Weihofen as our president. Henry was a long time professor at the UNM School of Law, for awhile the dean there, and probably the most distinguished of our many presidents. He was known for several books on the law; and in 1973, he was named outstanding educator in America. He was in office about six weeks when he landed in the hospital with a heart attack. When I visited him there, he offered to resign. "We can keep things going," I said, "Till you're well enough to take over again. And my philosophy is, you do things when you can." He smiled and said, "That's my philosophy, too." So we muddled through till Henry was again able to take charge. He finished his year as our leader, then he died, exactly when his term of office ended, October, 1993. It was as if he could not leave us without first finishing the job he had agreed to do.

Things seemed to be moving along swimmingly, but we were soon to meet the serpent in our little Garden of Eden.

DISOWNED BY OUR FOUNDING FATHER

As I told you, Sidney Teller met Sally Alice and Don Thompson through the Peace Center. In the beginning he was quite proud of them. On July 5,1986, he wrote a letter to Free Mind. "One of our members, new to Humanism, is on the Great Peace March. Written from Iowa, after walking all the way from Los Angeles, she hopes to be in Washington in November. She is Sally Thompson, who also went to Nicaragua to help rebuild a health clinic destroyed by Reagan's Contras."

That march was in favor of a thawing of the cold war between this nation and those of the Communist bloc. On the way to Washington, people not in sympathy with the walkers would yell, "Why not try walking through Russia?" They decided to do just that. Somehow they secured permission from both nations, and took their walk to Russia. Sally returned home a heroine (at least to us). We held a meeting where she told us all about her big adventure.

So long as the discussion centered on a thawing of relations between this nation and the Communists, Sidney and the Thompsons saw things eye to eye. But once their attention shifted from communists versus capitalists to Muslims versus Jews; the peace talks came to a grinding halt. Sidney sided with Israel and the Thompsons chose to sympathize with the Palestinians. The disagreement became so heated, that Sidney gave us a choice. We could oust the Thompsons from our group; or he would go.

Most of us sided with Sidney, so far as the argument went, but we could not, in good conscience, oust people from our Humanist Society because they didn't see things our way. The Thompsons were charter members. They had always behaved in an orderly and non-threatening manner when they came to meetings, which wasn't often. We tried to talk Sidney into changing his mind; but he felt he was in a war. His people had let him down by aiding and abetting the enemy. We were anti-Semitic; and he was having nothing more to do with us.

In October of 1994, nine years after he founded The Humanist Society of New Mexico, Sidney Teller wrote three letters to the editor of our Humanist Letter. In one he explained why he was leaving us: "The presence of supporters in our Humanist Society of a Moslem Theocratic State." He is speaking of Sally and Don Thompsons of course. In another, he quotes somebody as saying, "I attend every group that I can to promote an Arafat State as a means of achieving peace in the Near East."

Losing Sidney was a blow which came close to destroying our fledgling organization. A number of other members left us as well; some for their own reasons, some because they felt that when Sidney left he took with him the heart and soul of our organization. But we few hardy souls took the cards which were dealt us, and played the hands as best we could.

The following month, November of 1994, we elected officers, but it wasn't easy. I was appointed nominating committee chairman by our president: Gordon McClure. I contacted just about everybody in our group and could find nobody willing to run for any of the offices.. On the day of decision, I stood before the assembled members and gave them the low-down. Nobody would run for anything; and a group which can't find four people to fill its offices has no business calling itself an organization. I volunteered to stand as vice-president, providing three good citizens would volunteer to serve with me.

Otherwise, we could close our books and remit what remained in our treasury to the American Humanist Association as had happened with the short-lived group whose charter we revived. There was a silence, then Jean Atkins raised her hand. She volunteered for secretary. Cathy Burt volunteered to act as treasurer. Then nothing. I shrugged my shoulders. Without a president, we can't continue. After too long a pause, Leland Franks (I told you he came through when we needed him most) said, "I don't want to see this group go under. I'll serve."

One of our first acts, as newly elected officers, was a move to amend our by-laws so that future officers would serve a term of two years rather than one. As it happened our next president served a full four years, but that's another story which I'll tell you about when the time comes.

Among the more interesting things we did under Leland's Presidency was this: We met Caz Dziamka , an immigrant from Poland who introduced a class in The American Humanist Tradition at the Technical Vocational Institute of Albuquerque. Caz came to us as a speaker in February of 1996. He later joined our group. We awarded Caz our Human Achievement Award for New Mexico in 1997. He would host workshops at the National Conference that year. He was also editor of the American Rationalist. Caz was dismissed from his teaching position after local religious zealots kicked up a fuss. A lawsuit was filed by Caz and others who suffered wrongful termination; after which he would be reinstated as a TVI professor (but not of Humanism, popular as the course may have been to the students at TVI). Meanwhile, he had a family to support. He applied for and was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship at Tronso, Norway.

TOWARD GREATER INTERACTION WITH THE AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION

In October of 1996, we elected Charles Archibald of Durango, Colorado, our new president. He would travel 200 miles each way to attend our meetings, but in a world with computers and telephones, you can direct an operation largely from a distance. Charlie has long been active in the AHA and his aim from the beginning was to bring our local chapter into partnership with the national offices. Right away, one could see a big change in our operations just by reading our monthly New Mexico Humanist Letter.

Charlie appointed a new and younger member, Eric Rajala, editor. Eric is a psychiatric social worker and a close friend of Caz Dziamka, also an admirer. In 1997 , Charlie was elected secretary of the AHA Chapter Assembly. His primary focus was to bring not only our chapter, but the Chapter Assembly into full partnership with the AHA. In our March '97 newsletter, Charlie tells us of the Harvey Labram Trust Fund, which annually provides a $1,000 grant to any chapter which first donates $20 to the fund; then provides the best idea for spending that $1,000 grant. Charlie would discuss that idea with us at our next informal meeting. We agreed to donate the $20; and later to apply for the grant. Our idea was to use the money on advertising, We formed a committee whose job it was to think of ads which might attract new members to our society; ads such as: IT'S BETTER TO GROW UP THAN BE BORN AGAIN; and HUMANIST DO IT (when there's something to be done, we get the bother and the fun. We haven't anyone but one another). The ads were clever. We landed the grant; but the ads didn't succeed in attracting new members (or even visitors to our group). New members came first as speakers or guests, or in response to a notice in the press of a speaker they wanted to hear.

One thing you can say about Charlie Archibald. He's not shy. When Charlie learned that nationally famed entertainer and writer, Steve Allen, would be in Albuquerque, he had the nerve to ask if that celebrity would care to meet with the Humanist Society of New Mexico. Steve Allen accepted the invitation! When somebody asked, "How'd you get by without paying him anything?" Charlie answered, "He didn't mention money. Neither did I." We did have to shift our meeting time to his convenience. Steve Allen met with us April 11. He'd be signing books till six, but he'd meet with us at seven. I had bought one of his books: Dumbth: and 81 Ways to Make Americans Smarter, and I had written a review of that book for our Humanist Letter. We had a crowd that evening, and I felt a bit pushy as I made my way to the front of the room where SteveAllen was grabbing a bite to eat while introductions were being made. I set the book and the review on the table before him and went back to my seat. That great man not only signed the book; he wrote me a letter of thanks for the kind review. Steve Allen was truly a Humanist.

We re-elected Charlie in 1998, which means he served a four year term, a big change from the one-year presidents we'd had in the past.

In October of 2000, we elected our current president, Jerry Wesner. Jerry retired after teaching high school social studies for 36 years. He is enthusiastic about that job we had to draft others into under a threat of closing our books.

Jerry has attracted new members. Our numbers have risen to 100 (the highest in the history of New Mexico Humanists. New people include Louis Metzger, a former student of his (now a freshman at UNM) Louis is our new Webmaster on the internet. Jerry and Louis are hoping to start a student Humanist Society at UNM or TVI.

Jerry got a number of our members interested and involved with his idea of holding an essay contest for high school students. The group raised $1,000 in prize money which was awarded to Britta Lindquist, an outstanding student in St. Michael's High School in Santa Fe. Her winning essay is titled "The Advantages and Disadvantages of Racial and Cultural Diversity in Current Societies." Britta received the Presidential Scholar Award in 2002. She will attend Harvard College in the fall. Bob Gordon, who served as Jerry's vice-president, decided that a society which could attract Steve Allen, might try for the governor of New Mexico. Governor Gary Johnson shook up our state Republican Party as well as many other politicians across the nation when he came out in favor of legalizing marijuana. He not only came out in favor of the idea, he made it his mission, making appearances on national television as well as speaking engagements across the nation. A busy man, he found time for us. As I said, a speaker likes nothing more than facing an intelligent audience with a sympathetic ear.

WE ARE NAMED AHA CHAPTER OF THE YEAR FOR 2003

Our president, Jerry Wesner, and past president Charlie Archibald led a contingent of our members to the 2002 AHA Conference in Houston. While there, they voted for Charlie's dream of making the chapters full partners with the governing board of AHA. They came home with the proposal approved by the convention. We have since become one of the first in the nation to become member chapters.

Because most of our members are also affiliated with AHA, apart of our AHA dues are refunded to our chapter to be used as we see fit.

We were named AHA 2003 chapter of the year for a number of reasons: Our membership rolls have again doubled; and 70% of those members also belong to the American Humanist Association. We initiated our high school essay contest and kept it going, with Cathy Burt taking over this year from Gordon McClure. We have an excellent group of officers: Lou Cuevas, who sees we continue to attract intelligent and interesting speakers. Paul Deal continues to put out an almost flawless newsletter, with interesting and important ideas as well as news of our upcoming meetings, etc. Our secretary, Randall Wall, doubles as publicity chairman. He also sees we have one of our members ready to present a "humanist minute" (or five minutes) at each formal meeting. Ron Herman has organized a small but enthusiastic group of like-minded students at The University of New Mexico. Our treasurer, Caroline Glen Kaye, is as active in politics as she is in our society; and yours truly almost never fails to come up with the coffee and cookies as well as our yearly picnic in my side yard.