1999 INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST —
TAPE #579, SIDE #2
Q: Mark Russell Bell
G: Guy Cimbalo, www.slywire.com reporter
S: unidentified www.slywire.com staff member
K: Kianna James, www.slywire.com receptionist
Q: So I get back into bed and start going back to sleep — it’s almost 4 a.m. and there’s a noise at my computer. I mean there is just about every day but I feel I have to check. (I turn on computer)
( . . . )
Q: So I love God and I love Mighael. And I ask for forgiveness in this role of judge and witch and bitch that I assume in an attempt to expand (“OTHER”) consciousness. I mean as Mark Russell Bell I hope to deliver my message and have others hear it so that I can stop doing this. But I think it is going to be helpful—if there is the opportunity—(for others) to hear all of the tapes.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: THE UPGRADED MODEM PROVIDED BY IBM MAKES IT HARD TO CONNECT TO MY I.S.P. I USUALLY HAVE TO REDIAL REPEATEDLY.)
Q: Let’s try again. Thank you God and Mighael for all Your gifts of Love. God and the Son of God. Still not going through. (I cancel and try to connect again) Forgiveness is so important. We have to forgive ourselves. The only way we can forgive ourselves is by forgiving others because that’s how we learn how to forgive ourselves. So, of course, it’s important for me every once in a while to forgive God and Mighael for putting me into this position even though I want to help and I am willing to make any necessary sacrifices. I do want what’s best for God. That’s what I tell Him all the time. “Do what’s best for You.” Still not going through. I wonder what I’m doing wrong. (I cancel out and try to connect again) If I’m being overly judgmental and harsh and strict on the preceding tape side, which I have no doubt I’m being, then put it through now, Mighael. No, it’s not going through either. (I cancel and try to connect again) Sometimes when I have the right thought, it goes through. So how about — well Love is the only true religion. The main thing is to remind people of that. That’s how you can really tell who the phonies are. If they aren’t talking about love. (‘handshake’ occurs) It went through.
( . . . )
Q: So I went to the UFORCE website to see if my page or news headline has been added yet because I had understood that it was going to be added this weekend and it still isn’t there. It’s so frustrating when you go to websites and they can’t load. I think there are problems with the advertizing. There’s all this advertizing everywhere. It’s always a sign of exploitation.
( . . . )
Q: Well I guess since I have Netscape 3, an older browser, I can’t get this website. However, the address I was given for where my page was going to be, it has something else entirely so I guess they thought better of enlightening others about me in any capacity. Another cover-up. It says, “My virtual photo album.” This is the link they gave me, saying my page would be here in the future. It says, “Welcome to my online photo album. Vacation pictures: put in pictures from your last vacation. Friends: show off your friends’ special events.” What is this? Maybe they put down the wrong address. How odd. Because the website address is www.angelfire.com/wa2/uforce/page17.html — that’s what it said in the Email. It says, “Thank you for personalizing our webpage. I’m about to load it but it will take a while to do so. You will find your post at this webpage.” It gives the address and this was sent last Friday by Christopher Montgomery of UFORCE. How embarrassing. I think I misspelled disk. I think it should be spelled with a ‘c.’ I put down “incandescent disk.” I hope it’s not another UFOmind-type debacle. When I saw that they had me listed as a non-alien channeler — well they did take it down as soon as I contacted them. However, how did they ever make that mistake? Well I’ve talked about that in the past. There are so many channelers around, they just assumed — I guess Mr. Campbell just assumed that I was another one of them.
( . . . )
Q: So at the “Drudge Report 2000” there’s a link to an article about “Hundreds Trapped in Taiwan’s Monster Quake . . .” Now that humanity has the power to create earthquakes, I think mankind should also have the knowledge of “Karma” and “Reincarnation.” Another link says, “TV’s whitewash overblown, study says.” I clicked on it and it’s by John Dempsey, New York Variety. “A major ad agency is challenging the conventional wisdom that network television is doing a poor job of representing Blacks in primetime and suggests that things have gotten better, not worse over the past 20 years.” Well isn’t that where we are today? An ad agency? Spinning? Public Relations? Notice that when God took control of my life as a gift of Love, the first thing He did was make sure I stopped watching TV. So, of course, Mr. Drudge is another cover-up participant. His big headline at the moment is “Annan: UN Intervention ‘Everywhere Or Nowhere.'” Above the headline it says, “Floyd Leaves Public Health Problem . . .”; “New Tropical Storm Churns Closer to Fla . . .”; and “Gert Takes Aim at Bermuda . . .” Well I guess most people don’t realize that there’s also technology that allows weather modifications. And mind control experiments. So other headlines include “Bauer Loyalists Abandoning Ship . . .,” “‘American Beauty’ wins Toronto award . . .” Isn’t that what’s wrong with society? Glamour and illusion is considered of equal importance to issues of world and national relevance in terms of how we each live our lives. “Dick Morris: Hillary’s Self-Inflicted Wounds . . .” There’s never been so much disinformation about anyone, I think, as about the Clintons and why is it even all there in the first place? It just keeps one from looking at the real issues. Also there’s “Waco prober also under investigation . . .”; “Danforth Confronted By Victim’s Parents At Waco Ruins . . .”; “Bombmaking videotapes star at Puerto Rican clemency hearing . . .”; “Bush Refusing To Release Medical Records . . .” So obviously each one of these shows a political agenda from different sources, obviously. I just don’t think any journalist really is aware of (the amount of) manipulation in this day and age. There’s the ‘fear of losing advertisers’ and the ‘sources’ — especially those ‘sources one can’t reveal.’ There’s always a spin involved. No one’s really dedicated to truth and spiritual elevation — just their own self-interest. And I’m especially upset at the way political candidates are chosen. Why are these the only ones? I think people should get together and nominate the leaders. Not the millionaires who’ve exploited others. Not the sons and daughters of other famous people. But people who really have a record of serving others in a noble way; don’t let the biggest sociopaths choose themselves, the way the system now works. And, of course, there’s always the spiritual reality of any people getting the leader they deserve. That’s why when people complain about Clinton with all the severity of things there, it’s quite obvious — (“TO”) remain saying that if he wasn’t in office, someone just like him would take his place. Now they’re even starting to murder the people who pose a threat like John Kennedy Jr. — the ones who don’t have ties or show an affinity for the military mentality.
( . . . )
Q: Well I’m going to go back to bed. I don’t really see anything. I’m probably overlooking something. I’ll check again after going to the gym tomorrow morning early.
( . . . )
Q: Oh I received a response from Jaculin via Email. It says, “Your work is excellent.” Well that’s surprising. I don’t think she’s had very much time to read it yet. “Are you going to be at any of the Whole Life Expos? If so, please come and see me. I am off to Texas today so I will look further into your website info when I return home. It is so wonderful and heartwarming to be able to do this work and share how work with each other. Keep in touch. Jaculin.”
( . . . )
Q: So I’m on my way to Slywire and I just saw a license plate that says “2SPY777.” And I’m listening to Bob music on the radio.
Baby’s black balloon makes her fly I almost fell into that hole in your life And you’re not thinking about tomorrow ‘Cause you were the same as me . . .
(“Black Balloon” Goo Goo Dolls excerpt)
Q: Oh I’m not going to be bitchy. That really isn’t Bob music?! It’s just that one of them happens to have a name that’s a version of Bob. Names are a mystery.
( . . . )
Q: Here right next to the V.A., Federal Building, etc., there are so many homeless people. Sepulveda and Wilshire. Some of them have camouflage on.
( . . . )
Q: So the (building parking garage) message today is: “‘I souport publik edekasion.’ — Bumper Sticker.” Oh I’m getting a good parking place.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: GUY AND I AGAIN SPOKE IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM WITH THE POOR ACOUSTICS SO MUCH OF HIS QUESTIONS ARE INAUDIBLE AS ARE PARTS OF MY CONVERSATION.)
G: Can I get you some water or anything?
Q: Oh I have some water here. That’s fine. Did you hear about that “Awareness 2000” —
G: No, I didn’t hear anything about it.
Q: I got a few extra ones (schedules) so I’ll give you one to look at. What really struck me — (“AND”) you know, when you’re just taking it in — I went to, like, nineteen different presentations and two of them — I would’ve gone to two more but they didn’t show up. And what really struck me is, for example, Richard Hoagland has a NASA background. David Adair also was with NASA. And then you just look — Fred Bell was with the navy? Alfred Bielek was with the navy. No, actually he — I think Fred Bell was with (the air force) — well it was with Saturn and Apollo. Anyway, all these pseudo-military people. (“I”) You know, it’s like ‘This is supposed to be a spirituality, new millennium expo?’ So I don’t know — it just is very —
G: You didn’t like it? (“NO”)
Q: Well I didn’t really like it or dislike it because I really went to go to find out more about channelers. And (“NO”) for a while I was just taking it all in and then last night at 2 a.m. — I woke up at 2 a.m. and I got my tape recorder and I said — you know I always — I sort of overdid it and I said it was a “parade of the damned” because (or “BECAUSE”) I mean nobody really is talking about helping other people. It’s all — (“REAL”) it’s not really a spiritual expo. It’s really more of a — what’s the right word? People just finding a new way of making money for themselves by extolling spirituality. Not necessarily practicing it. (“SO”) I went to, like, really different lectures and presentations (including) channelers. And sometimes like — (“LIKE”) the first channeler on Sunday was a woman and she got a huge room and I’d never heard of her and only a few people showed up. She mentioned that her first husband was in the CIA and she was (at one time) working at some pseudo-military operation in Japan. I mean you just wonder. And then they say things like ‘Jesus was an extraterrestrial.’ I mean (“NO”) then what’s the point? (“HONEY”) ‘No wonder they crucified it.’ No, I mean it’s ridiculous. I mean it’s just absurd. So I just wonder if (“IF IF”) the military is doing this to control spirituality — (“NO”) they think they can control it. (“BUT”) Could they have done the same thing with the media? (“NO” “BECAUSE”) A lot of them — (“I”) I mean at one of the lectures by David Adair, he mentioned he was going on “Jenny Jones” next week. (“IT’S LIKE”) Excuse me? So they really must —
G: That’s kind of a weird “Jenny Jones” booking. Wow.
Q: Well he has this — there’s this new software program that can tell if somebody’s telling the truth by the modulations in the voice.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: ADAIR WAS A GUEST ON AN EPISODE OF “LEEZA” THAT WAS BROADCAST ON THANKSGIVING DAY, NOVEMBER 25TH.)
G: Okay.
Q: And apparently it works. Unless somebody is mentally disturbed and (“BELIE” “NO IS”) pathological liar or something. But (“BECAUSE”) anyway — but I don’t take anything (at face value). (“NO I”) I take everything with a grain of salt because (“BECAUSE LIKE”) like it says Fred Bell was a rocket scientist and physicist. You know, I don’t necessarily believe that. In fact, I asked when I raised my hand and I asked him — I said, ‘Is the government spreading disinformation about channeling?’ Because he says he’s met, like, five different races of aliens and what-have-you. And, of course, he didn’t answer the question. He’s got to be Art’s brother. He looks just like him except fatter. (“I MEAN” “NO”) I mean I know Art has said he has a sister (“WHO”) I never heard of. (“BUT”) If he’s not his brother, he’s a weird alien clone because they look very much (“I”) alike. (“BUT HE”) He was wearing a pyramid on his head, though. Well it’s stupid. I mean he was obviously too sophisticated to do that and then his assistant was wearing one too.
G: (small laugh)
Q: I think his assistant was a ‘Bob,’ of course.
G: Yeah, just put it there to look like a jackass, huh? (“SO”)
Q: So out of nineteen different presentations, how many do you think would be just out-and-out lying?
G: Nineteen.
Q: You do?
G: Yeah. (“C I”)
Q: No, I don’t think it’s that bad. (“BUT”) But you know me. I’m very suspicious. Like, for example, ‘the pink dolphin lady.’ Sweetest, nicest person — she’s been working forever with the last remaining dolphins. (“BUT”) You know, when I went to that ‘parade of the damned,’ it was because — she does work for the government. And (“AN[D] LIKE”) look at this handout. She has time to be talking to elementary school kids? (“NO”) With the problems of the rain forest? Anyway, (“I”) I shouldn’t get — (“NO” “IT’S SO”) see, you know what I — that’s what I realized. Because what I did is I ended up giving my book to the people who didn’t have websites and Email. And then I just gave the Email address to the ones who did have Email. One of them replied right away. And I had found something I really was upset about in one of her handouts. She said that ‘obviously God doesn’t care about right and wrong or we would have justice in this world’ — (“WHICH” or “WITCH”) is like the worst thing. But she sent me a real nice Email letter and she’s obviously interested in getting good information (“AND I”) because I keep forgetting that people do not have good spiritual information (“SO”) I just have to remember that at times. So and I really can’t judge. I mean I do it. I make a jerk out of myself. (“BUT” “NO”)
G: We all do.
Q: Exactly. (“BUT”) So God is really the only One Who can judge. So, anyway, today, you know, when I went to the gym I was saying, (“OKAY WELL” “WITHOU”) ‘If these people really are damned, give me a sign.’ And I usually ask for license plates. (“BECAUSE”) That’s sort of a non-Satanic — (“AGEN[CY]”) people can’t say ‘Well that would be Satan.” Right? If it’s license plates? Well they could say anything — (“BUT” “WELL” “SO I” “IT”) and then, of course, so I was looking at license plates and I only turn once on the way to the gym because it’s really close to me. And so I was looking for D, A, M — ‘damned’ or something. And I didn’t see any but then I saw one that didn’t have a license plate at all. And that reminded me of something that I had heard before. And that was basically God being Love, He wouldn’t be a masochist and perpetuate misery. So what I think that (“THE LI”) that signified was that He would just forget someone out of existence. Because (“IN A”) since we’re all (“NO”) linked with His memory, He would just forget them and it would be like they never existed. (“SO”) He wouldn’t have to feel guilty because they wouldn’t know. I mean it would be tragic if it happened to us. (“BUT”) I don’t know. I had strange vibes. (“BECAUSE” “NO”) When weird things happen like people don’t show up even though they signed in and people give you strange looks, you know you just wonder. I mean how much do they know? (“ABOUT YOU”) I mean it’s — I can see why people become paranoid. Especially when people have all these government backgrounds. And I’ve heard some of them talk (“LIKE”) when I was listening to Art Bell. And I would cringe. And he has the same guests on. (“AS YOU”) Do you ever hear the show? He has the same people on and most of them have military backgrounds. Like Ed Dames. I mean explain that one. (“I MEAN”) Explain that one. I mean if you look at (“YOU KNOW”) the bulletin boards and the newsgroup, everyone says he’s totally made an idiot of himself so many times: ‘Why does Art have him on? Why why why?’ Well actually I think I know why Art has him on. Because actually he did state the real story why Art went off the air in terms of — what does he? — ‘remote viewing.’ And (“SO”) of course I had Emailed him about my website too so that could explain it as well but Art doesn’t know that.
G: So wait. What do you think the real reason he went of the air is?
Q: Well I think it has to do a little bit — Well I . . . last time (or “BUT”), you know, I had sent him my book. I didn’t hear from him for a long time. He called me or actually (“WELL HE”) Ramona called me. Did you read that transcript in the book?
G: Yeah, I . . . (how does that fit in)? (“WELL” “THAT WAS”)
Q: That was within the same week that they said his son had been sexually abused by the teacher in Parumph. I had heard nothing from them. What does that tell you? You know how homophobic Art is.
G: Okay.
Q: I mean totally homophobic. His son. It happened to his son. (“I MEAN” “SO KAR”) You have karma. You have the immediate karma because obviously Art is gay. I mean there was one night — when I was listening, I was listening very closely. And he was talking about, ‘Oh well, there’s a picture of — ‘ . . . he was (going to put on his website) a picture of a man’s chest. Some weird thing. I can’t remember what it was. Maybe an implant or something. ‘But we don’t really need to see —” And he went overboard and said, ‘Well we don’t really need to see — ‘ I mean he was obviously exhibiting repressed homosexuality. So I sent him an Email about it. In this case, I didn’t use my real name because there had already been so much ‘baggage’ back and forth that I really didn’t want to hurt my chances even more of not getting my message heard. So I sent him one of those — what’s that free Email places? Hot — Hotmail, yeah. (“SO” “AND”) And so that night, after apparently receiving my Email, he was talking about people buying tapes so you could listen to them and analyze them.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: LATER I AGAIN TRIED TO SEND HIM EMAIL FROM THE HOTMAIL SITE YET ART HAD MODIFIED HIS ACCOUNT SO THAT HE WOULDN’T RECEIVE ANY HOTMAIL EMAIL.)
Q: So and I did tape a lot of his shows. Not that I know which tape is which because I just numbered them all. (“BUT”) I have that one and I have the one where he did admit to being a black ops person.
G: They’re all on the Internet. They’re all on the Internet.
Q: What are?
G: The Art Bell broadcasts . . .
Q: Right. (“BUT Y[OU]”) But again people don’t know which ones — (“SEE”) most of the good stuff comes out during the open calling. Not when the guest is on. And I don’t know if that is on —
G: Yeah. No, It’s all (five) hours.
Q: But, see, you don’t know where to look, though, since he’s got so many shows. I mean I don’t even know which was the show where he admitted to being a black ops person.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I CHECKED SOME OF THE PROGRAMS I TAPED ON REGULAR CASSETTES AND FOUND THE SHOW WITH ART’S BLACK OPS STATEMENTS. THIS WAS THE FEB. 16, 1998 BROADCAST AROUND THE START OF THE SECOND HOUR OF THE SHOW. IT CAN BE HEARD AT: http://ww2.broadcast.com/artbell/feb98.stm)
G: Well actually they have . . . (descriptions)
Q: Yeah, but I don’t think “Art admitted he was a black ops — ” I mean he did it facetiously. (“I MEAN HE”) I’m sure he thought that he could say that and people would think that he was just kidding. And, again, I don’t even know even what degree of black ops. And what does black ops mean? It could be metaphoric or it could be government or whatever. (“SO”) And anyone in the government is obviously expendable. (“NO”) I mean obviously. So what I’ve decided to do because I did have that man in — men in black experience which I wrote about in my book. And (“YOU KNOW”) I didn’t — I haven’t really noticed anything (“BUT” “NO”) for the longest time since then, which is a relief frankly. And I still am not sure exactly what that was because the people were acting so bizarre. I mean I don’t know what that was. And then you read things like The Montauk Project about 'time travel.' (“N”) And, of course, you get the feeling that this is misinformation too because the author — in fact, I was reading — I read this book recently. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this?
G: No, I haven’t.
Q: It’s totally —
G: (mentions having lived in the area)
Q: Oh really? Well I bet you know a few stories.
G: Um-huh.
Q: So (“I MEAN”) climate control, mind control, time travel. (“BUT”) I don’t know — (“I MEAN SEE”) it takes me more — I mean I sort’ve read this and it was not written very well. So I sort of look at it and think, (“WELL”) “This is interesting. (“BUT”) The time travel element.” You keep seeing — like I was looking at the books advertised. There are a lot of time travel books in what books that seem like they could be titled ‘disinformation.’ So I don’t know what the government’s (“NO”) objective is. I know at one point there was a campaign to — at least this was what was said somewhere — that they wanted aliens to have six fingers. I guess they wanted to dehumanify them. (“OR WHATEVER” “AND”) Right after I read this, (“NO”) you would read an article (somewhere else) that said this. I mean after hearing it claimed that this is what the government’s doing somewhere, then you see it culminating in articles at the same time so you just wonder. I mean I don’t really — it’s hard really to say. So — but here, you can have a copy of this to look at. (“IT’S”) It’s just interesting to see their backgrounds. And two of them didn’t show up. I mean some of them I don’t think have anything to do with the government, obviously. But others I’m not so sure. (“AN IT”) It’s sad. What I’ve decided to do is — you’re not going to change the system, especially with the military mentality, from the top down. I mean it’s not going to happen. So I figure I’m going to start at the bottom. And if each person at the bottom just works on their boss. (“I MEAN”) Because really when you look at it, the CIA, the FBI — I mean these are all associations that don’t really exist. They’re just names. They’re evil empires that people have sort’ve bought into (“WHEN”) for whatever reasons. (“NO”) They want to get career, money, whatever. The military is another one. I mean is it an accident that there are all those vaccines causing problems for people in the military? I mean is that a lesson to think before you do something? I mean it would happen to them. Have you ever had any vaccines?
G: Yeah, I’ve had them.
Q: Euuchh. See? I mean you know how dangerous they are.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: ONE OF GUY’S ASSOCIATES SUDDENLY ENTERS THE CONFERENCE ROOM.)
S: Hey Guy, I’m going to need those blurbs today on —
G: Okay. Yeah.
S: — short order, actually. Within an hour so —
G: Okay . . .
Q: Okay, we’ll finish up. Okay, I’m going to give you — here’s the tape to look at.
G: Great. (“ANYWAY”) Okay, great. Q: Okay. And then if you have any questions, let me know.
G: Thanks once again for . . . (we go to the reception area)
Q: Okay, so — and I’ll just contact you — (“I”) tried contacting you once by — what is it? — oh voicemail. But do you have voicemail yet?
G: Yeah, I guess we do now. Yeah.
Q: You do? Okay. Because I tried today. What extension number?
G: (to receptionist) Do you know what extension number we are? . . .
K: Your extension? (glances at listing)
G: Yeah.
K: Your extension —
Q: I think Email is probably —
K: You don’t have —
G: Oh, I don’t have one yet.
Q: Oh, okay.
G: So that’s a problem. Okay, so Email’s the best way . . .
Q: Okay. (“WELL”) I know how it feels. The staff writers — are you a staff writer?
G: Um-huh.
Q: Okay. They’re always the most expendable people in the department. Speaking from experience. At Paramount — I mean who ever thought that they would get rid of the writers? (Yet it was) the best thing that ever happened to me. So, anyway, okay thanks for everything.
G: Great. Thanks a lot.
Q: Oh I should maybe get my parking validation. What’s your name, by the way?
K: Kianna.
Q: I’m into names. I like looking — (“IN”) I sort of do ‘psychic readings’ with names.
K: Oohh.
Q: How do you spell it?
K: K — I — A — N — N — A.
Q: What’s your last name?
K: James.
Q: James, okay. Do you have a middle name?
K: Larie.
Q: Okay, well I’m getting very positive things from that name.
K: You are?
Q: Yeah. Are you temping? Are you a temp?
K: No.
Q: No. (“I’VE DO[NE]”) I’ve done some temping. Right next door. Ooouuu.
K: Oh.
Q: You’re lucky.
K: (laughs) (puts on stickers)
Q: What is ‘Slywire,’ by the way? I mean what — is it? Do you know what kind of a webzine it is?
K: . . . I’m not sure because . . . just got finally the name. So I’m not so sure . . .
Q: You start with the name and then worry about the content. Okay. Well good luck with everything.
( . . . )
Q: (speaking into tape recorder) I talk too much at times. I hope I didn’t wreck his impression of me. But you want to share certain bits of information. I certainly shared everything I wanted to and more. But it might’ve sounded a little bit — well I do live in the valley.
( . . . )
Q: I just gave a homeless person a dollar. Even though I felt bad about it because I sort of crumpled it up and threw it out the window because I didn’t want to impede traffic. Ohh, what a nasty situation the world is in.
( . . . )
Q: So today I checked my Email and I had 163 pieces of Email. I guess from Eldon Taylor and a lot of them were undeliverable mail. It says, “This message was addressed to a user that does not exist at this address . . .” blah blah blah. This is really strange because some of them show up as messages to me from addresses I’ve never heard of before. For example, this one says, “Please quit Emailing me if you cannot get it right the first time. My Email had about twenty things sent. It was crowding my mailbox. Thank you.” And why did I get this? Someone else wrote: “Dear Dr. Taylor, I received 75 copies of this that did not go through or were bad. I also received a couple of Emails from strangers addressed to you. They were irate because they had received multiple bad copies.” Someone else wrote: “Stop sending this to me. If you keep it up, I’ll report you to AOL.” (the Email said:) “Posted to Inner Talk News by —” I thought I had finally received some publicity of some sort. Ironically, the original message was all about stress and how to deal with it. So eventually it starts trying to sell audio tapes. I guess there’s a video program too. Anyway, it’s a “deluxe collection library. Normally $119.88 that is now $69 plus shipping.”
( . . . )
Q: Well it’s now past 4:30 p.m. and I’m still getting massive Emails from that faltering Email newsgroup but I’ve been busy this morning in between taking Ellen to dialysis. I first read something very disturbing at the “Sightings” radio program website entitled “UK Ufologist Max Burns Convicted On Drug Charges.” This was a clipping from The Sheffield Star dated 9-21-99. I’ll read it.
( . . . )
Q: So I love God and I love Mighael. And I ask for forgiveness in this role of judge and witch and bitch that I assume in an attempt to expand (“OTHER”) consciousness. I mean as Mark Russell Bell I hope to deliver my message and have others hear it so that I can stop doing this. But I think it is going to be helpful—if there is the opportunity—(for others) to hear all of the tapes.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: THE UPGRADED MODEM PROVIDED BY IBM MAKES IT HARD TO CONNECT TO MY I.S.P. I USUALLY HAVE TO REDIAL REPEATEDLY.)
Q: Let’s try again. Thank you God and Mighael for all Your gifts of Love. God and the Son of God. Still not going through. (I cancel and try to connect again) Forgiveness is so important. We have to forgive ourselves. The only way we can forgive ourselves is by forgiving others because that’s how we learn how to forgive ourselves. So, of course, it’s important for me every once in a while to forgive God and Mighael for putting me into this position even though I want to help and I am willing to make any necessary sacrifices. I do want what’s best for God. That’s what I tell Him all the time. “Do what’s best for You.” Still not going through. I wonder what I’m doing wrong. (I cancel out and try to connect again) If I’m being overly judgmental and harsh and strict on the preceding tape side, which I have no doubt I’m being, then put it through now, Mighael. No, it’s not going through either. (I cancel and try to connect again) Sometimes when I have the right thought, it goes through. So how about — well Love is the only true religion. The main thing is to remind people of that. That’s how you can really tell who the phonies are. If they aren’t talking about love. (‘handshake’ occurs) It went through.
( . . . )
Q: So I went to the UFORCE website to see if my page or news headline has been added yet because I had understood that it was going to be added this weekend and it still isn’t there. It’s so frustrating when you go to websites and they can’t load. I think there are problems with the advertizing. There’s all this advertizing everywhere. It’s always a sign of exploitation.
( . . . )
Q: Well I guess since I have Netscape 3, an older browser, I can’t get this website. However, the address I was given for where my page was going to be, it has something else entirely so I guess they thought better of enlightening others about me in any capacity. Another cover-up. It says, “My virtual photo album.” This is the link they gave me, saying my page would be here in the future. It says, “Welcome to my online photo album. Vacation pictures: put in pictures from your last vacation. Friends: show off your friends’ special events.” What is this? Maybe they put down the wrong address. How odd. Because the website address is www.angelfire.com/wa2/uforce/page17.html — that’s what it said in the Email. It says, “Thank you for personalizing our webpage. I’m about to load it but it will take a while to do so. You will find your post at this webpage.” It gives the address and this was sent last Friday by Christopher Montgomery of UFORCE. How embarrassing. I think I misspelled disk. I think it should be spelled with a ‘c.’ I put down “incandescent disk.” I hope it’s not another UFOmind-type debacle. When I saw that they had me listed as a non-alien channeler — well they did take it down as soon as I contacted them. However, how did they ever make that mistake? Well I’ve talked about that in the past. There are so many channelers around, they just assumed — I guess Mr. Campbell just assumed that I was another one of them.
( . . . )
Q: So at the “Drudge Report 2000” there’s a link to an article about “Hundreds Trapped in Taiwan’s Monster Quake . . .” Now that humanity has the power to create earthquakes, I think mankind should also have the knowledge of “Karma” and “Reincarnation.” Another link says, “TV’s whitewash overblown, study says.” I clicked on it and it’s by John Dempsey, New York Variety. “A major ad agency is challenging the conventional wisdom that network television is doing a poor job of representing Blacks in primetime and suggests that things have gotten better, not worse over the past 20 years.” Well isn’t that where we are today? An ad agency? Spinning? Public Relations? Notice that when God took control of my life as a gift of Love, the first thing He did was make sure I stopped watching TV. So, of course, Mr. Drudge is another cover-up participant. His big headline at the moment is “Annan: UN Intervention ‘Everywhere Or Nowhere.'” Above the headline it says, “Floyd Leaves Public Health Problem . . .”; “New Tropical Storm Churns Closer to Fla . . .”; and “Gert Takes Aim at Bermuda . . .” Well I guess most people don’t realize that there’s also technology that allows weather modifications. And mind control experiments. So other headlines include “Bauer Loyalists Abandoning Ship . . .,” “‘American Beauty’ wins Toronto award . . .” Isn’t that what’s wrong with society? Glamour and illusion is considered of equal importance to issues of world and national relevance in terms of how we each live our lives. “Dick Morris: Hillary’s Self-Inflicted Wounds . . .” There’s never been so much disinformation about anyone, I think, as about the Clintons and why is it even all there in the first place? It just keeps one from looking at the real issues. Also there’s “Waco prober also under investigation . . .”; “Danforth Confronted By Victim’s Parents At Waco Ruins . . .”; “Bombmaking videotapes star at Puerto Rican clemency hearing . . .”; “Bush Refusing To Release Medical Records . . .” So obviously each one of these shows a political agenda from different sources, obviously. I just don’t think any journalist really is aware of (the amount of) manipulation in this day and age. There’s the ‘fear of losing advertisers’ and the ‘sources’ — especially those ‘sources one can’t reveal.’ There’s always a spin involved. No one’s really dedicated to truth and spiritual elevation — just their own self-interest. And I’m especially upset at the way political candidates are chosen. Why are these the only ones? I think people should get together and nominate the leaders. Not the millionaires who’ve exploited others. Not the sons and daughters of other famous people. But people who really have a record of serving others in a noble way; don’t let the biggest sociopaths choose themselves, the way the system now works. And, of course, there’s always the spiritual reality of any people getting the leader they deserve. That’s why when people complain about Clinton with all the severity of things there, it’s quite obvious — (“TO”) remain saying that if he wasn’t in office, someone just like him would take his place. Now they’re even starting to murder the people who pose a threat like John Kennedy Jr. — the ones who don’t have ties or show an affinity for the military mentality.
( . . . )
Q: Well I’m going to go back to bed. I don’t really see anything. I’m probably overlooking something. I’ll check again after going to the gym tomorrow morning early.
( . . . )
Q: Oh I received a response from Jaculin via Email. It says, “Your work is excellent.” Well that’s surprising. I don’t think she’s had very much time to read it yet. “Are you going to be at any of the Whole Life Expos? If so, please come and see me. I am off to Texas today so I will look further into your website info when I return home. It is so wonderful and heartwarming to be able to do this work and share how work with each other. Keep in touch. Jaculin.”
( . . . )
Q: So I’m on my way to Slywire and I just saw a license plate that says “2SPY777.” And I’m listening to Bob music on the radio.
Baby’s black balloon makes her fly I almost fell into that hole in your life And you’re not thinking about tomorrow ‘Cause you were the same as me . . .
(“Black Balloon” Goo Goo Dolls excerpt)
Q: Oh I’m not going to be bitchy. That really isn’t Bob music?! It’s just that one of them happens to have a name that’s a version of Bob. Names are a mystery.
( . . . )
Q: Here right next to the V.A., Federal Building, etc., there are so many homeless people. Sepulveda and Wilshire. Some of them have camouflage on.
( . . . )
Q: So the (building parking garage) message today is: “‘I souport publik edekasion.’ — Bumper Sticker.” Oh I’m getting a good parking place.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: GUY AND I AGAIN SPOKE IN THE CONFERENCE ROOM WITH THE POOR ACOUSTICS SO MUCH OF HIS QUESTIONS ARE INAUDIBLE AS ARE PARTS OF MY CONVERSATION.)
G: Can I get you some water or anything?
Q: Oh I have some water here. That’s fine. Did you hear about that “Awareness 2000” —
G: No, I didn’t hear anything about it.
Q: I got a few extra ones (schedules) so I’ll give you one to look at. What really struck me — (“AND”) you know, when you’re just taking it in — I went to, like, nineteen different presentations and two of them — I would’ve gone to two more but they didn’t show up. And what really struck me is, for example, Richard Hoagland has a NASA background. David Adair also was with NASA. And then you just look — Fred Bell was with the navy? Alfred Bielek was with the navy. No, actually he — I think Fred Bell was with (the air force) — well it was with Saturn and Apollo. Anyway, all these pseudo-military people. (“I”) You know, it’s like ‘This is supposed to be a spirituality, new millennium expo?’ So I don’t know — it just is very —
G: You didn’t like it? (“NO”)
Q: Well I didn’t really like it or dislike it because I really went to go to find out more about channelers. And (“NO”) for a while I was just taking it all in and then last night at 2 a.m. — I woke up at 2 a.m. and I got my tape recorder and I said — you know I always — I sort of overdid it and I said it was a “parade of the damned” because (or “BECAUSE”) I mean nobody really is talking about helping other people. It’s all — (“REAL”) it’s not really a spiritual expo. It’s really more of a — what’s the right word? People just finding a new way of making money for themselves by extolling spirituality. Not necessarily practicing it. (“SO”) I went to, like, really different lectures and presentations (including) channelers. And sometimes like — (“LIKE”) the first channeler on Sunday was a woman and she got a huge room and I’d never heard of her and only a few people showed up. She mentioned that her first husband was in the CIA and she was (at one time) working at some pseudo-military operation in Japan. I mean you just wonder. And then they say things like ‘Jesus was an extraterrestrial.’ I mean (“NO”) then what’s the point? (“HONEY”) ‘No wonder they crucified it.’ No, I mean it’s ridiculous. I mean it’s just absurd. So I just wonder if (“IF IF”) the military is doing this to control spirituality — (“NO”) they think they can control it. (“BUT”) Could they have done the same thing with the media? (“NO” “BECAUSE”) A lot of them — (“I”) I mean at one of the lectures by David Adair, he mentioned he was going on “Jenny Jones” next week. (“IT’S LIKE”) Excuse me? So they really must —
G: That’s kind of a weird “Jenny Jones” booking. Wow.
Q: Well he has this — there’s this new software program that can tell if somebody’s telling the truth by the modulations in the voice.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: ADAIR WAS A GUEST ON AN EPISODE OF “LEEZA” THAT WAS BROADCAST ON THANKSGIVING DAY, NOVEMBER 25TH.)
G: Okay.
Q: And apparently it works. Unless somebody is mentally disturbed and (“BELIE” “NO IS”) pathological liar or something. But (“BECAUSE”) anyway — but I don’t take anything (at face value). (“NO I”) I take everything with a grain of salt because (“BECAUSE LIKE”) like it says Fred Bell was a rocket scientist and physicist. You know, I don’t necessarily believe that. In fact, I asked when I raised my hand and I asked him — I said, ‘Is the government spreading disinformation about channeling?’ Because he says he’s met, like, five different races of aliens and what-have-you. And, of course, he didn’t answer the question. He’s got to be Art’s brother. He looks just like him except fatter. (“I MEAN” “NO”) I mean I know Art has said he has a sister (“WHO”) I never heard of. (“BUT”) If he’s not his brother, he’s a weird alien clone because they look very much (“I”) alike. (“BUT HE”) He was wearing a pyramid on his head, though. Well it’s stupid. I mean he was obviously too sophisticated to do that and then his assistant was wearing one too.
G: (small laugh)
Q: I think his assistant was a ‘Bob,’ of course.
G: Yeah, just put it there to look like a jackass, huh? (“SO”)
Q: So out of nineteen different presentations, how many do you think would be just out-and-out lying?
G: Nineteen.
Q: You do?
G: Yeah. (“C I”)
Q: No, I don’t think it’s that bad. (“BUT”) But you know me. I’m very suspicious. Like, for example, ‘the pink dolphin lady.’ Sweetest, nicest person — she’s been working forever with the last remaining dolphins. (“BUT”) You know, when I went to that ‘parade of the damned,’ it was because — she does work for the government. And (“AN[D] LIKE”) look at this handout. She has time to be talking to elementary school kids? (“NO”) With the problems of the rain forest? Anyway, (“I”) I shouldn’t get — (“NO” “IT’S SO”) see, you know what I — that’s what I realized. Because what I did is I ended up giving my book to the people who didn’t have websites and Email. And then I just gave the Email address to the ones who did have Email. One of them replied right away. And I had found something I really was upset about in one of her handouts. She said that ‘obviously God doesn’t care about right and wrong or we would have justice in this world’ — (“WHICH” or “WITCH”) is like the worst thing. But she sent me a real nice Email letter and she’s obviously interested in getting good information (“AND I”) because I keep forgetting that people do not have good spiritual information (“SO”) I just have to remember that at times. So and I really can’t judge. I mean I do it. I make a jerk out of myself. (“BUT” “NO”)
G: We all do.
Q: Exactly. (“BUT”) So God is really the only One Who can judge. So, anyway, today, you know, when I went to the gym I was saying, (“OKAY WELL” “WITHOU”) ‘If these people really are damned, give me a sign.’ And I usually ask for license plates. (“BECAUSE”) That’s sort of a non-Satanic — (“AGEN[CY]”) people can’t say ‘Well that would be Satan.” Right? If it’s license plates? Well they could say anything — (“BUT” “WELL” “SO I” “IT”) and then, of course, so I was looking at license plates and I only turn once on the way to the gym because it’s really close to me. And so I was looking for D, A, M — ‘damned’ or something. And I didn’t see any but then I saw one that didn’t have a license plate at all. And that reminded me of something that I had heard before. And that was basically God being Love, He wouldn’t be a masochist and perpetuate misery. So what I think that (“THE LI”) that signified was that He would just forget someone out of existence. Because (“IN A”) since we’re all (“NO”) linked with His memory, He would just forget them and it would be like they never existed. (“SO”) He wouldn’t have to feel guilty because they wouldn’t know. I mean it would be tragic if it happened to us. (“BUT”) I don’t know. I had strange vibes. (“BECAUSE” “NO”) When weird things happen like people don’t show up even though they signed in and people give you strange looks, you know you just wonder. I mean how much do they know? (“ABOUT YOU”) I mean it’s — I can see why people become paranoid. Especially when people have all these government backgrounds. And I’ve heard some of them talk (“LIKE”) when I was listening to Art Bell. And I would cringe. And he has the same guests on. (“AS YOU”) Do you ever hear the show? He has the same people on and most of them have military backgrounds. Like Ed Dames. I mean explain that one. (“I MEAN”) Explain that one. I mean if you look at (“YOU KNOW”) the bulletin boards and the newsgroup, everyone says he’s totally made an idiot of himself so many times: ‘Why does Art have him on? Why why why?’ Well actually I think I know why Art has him on. Because actually he did state the real story why Art went off the air in terms of — what does he? — ‘remote viewing.’ And (“SO”) of course I had Emailed him about my website too so that could explain it as well but Art doesn’t know that.
G: So wait. What do you think the real reason he went of the air is?
Q: Well I think it has to do a little bit — Well I . . . last time (or “BUT”), you know, I had sent him my book. I didn’t hear from him for a long time. He called me or actually (“WELL HE”) Ramona called me. Did you read that transcript in the book?
G: Yeah, I . . . (how does that fit in)? (“WELL” “THAT WAS”)
Q: That was within the same week that they said his son had been sexually abused by the teacher in Parumph. I had heard nothing from them. What does that tell you? You know how homophobic Art is.
G: Okay.
Q: I mean totally homophobic. His son. It happened to his son. (“I MEAN” “SO KAR”) You have karma. You have the immediate karma because obviously Art is gay. I mean there was one night — when I was listening, I was listening very closely. And he was talking about, ‘Oh well, there’s a picture of — ‘ . . . he was (going to put on his website) a picture of a man’s chest. Some weird thing. I can’t remember what it was. Maybe an implant or something. ‘But we don’t really need to see —” And he went overboard and said, ‘Well we don’t really need to see — ‘ I mean he was obviously exhibiting repressed homosexuality. So I sent him an Email about it. In this case, I didn’t use my real name because there had already been so much ‘baggage’ back and forth that I really didn’t want to hurt my chances even more of not getting my message heard. So I sent him one of those — what’s that free Email places? Hot — Hotmail, yeah. (“SO” “AND”) And so that night, after apparently receiving my Email, he was talking about people buying tapes so you could listen to them and analyze them.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: LATER I AGAIN TRIED TO SEND HIM EMAIL FROM THE HOTMAIL SITE YET ART HAD MODIFIED HIS ACCOUNT SO THAT HE WOULDN’T RECEIVE ANY HOTMAIL EMAIL.)
Q: So and I did tape a lot of his shows. Not that I know which tape is which because I just numbered them all. (“BUT”) I have that one and I have the one where he did admit to being a black ops person.
G: They’re all on the Internet. They’re all on the Internet.
Q: What are?
G: The Art Bell broadcasts . . .
Q: Right. (“BUT Y[OU]”) But again people don’t know which ones — (“SEE”) most of the good stuff comes out during the open calling. Not when the guest is on. And I don’t know if that is on —
G: Yeah. No, It’s all (five) hours.
Q: But, see, you don’t know where to look, though, since he’s got so many shows. I mean I don’t even know which was the show where he admitted to being a black ops person.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: I CHECKED SOME OF THE PROGRAMS I TAPED ON REGULAR CASSETTES AND FOUND THE SHOW WITH ART’S BLACK OPS STATEMENTS. THIS WAS THE FEB. 16, 1998 BROADCAST AROUND THE START OF THE SECOND HOUR OF THE SHOW. IT CAN BE HEARD AT: http://ww2.broadcast.com/artbell/feb98.stm)
G: Well actually they have . . . (descriptions)
Q: Yeah, but I don’t think “Art admitted he was a black ops — ” I mean he did it facetiously. (“I MEAN HE”) I’m sure he thought that he could say that and people would think that he was just kidding. And, again, I don’t even know even what degree of black ops. And what does black ops mean? It could be metaphoric or it could be government or whatever. (“SO”) And anyone in the government is obviously expendable. (“NO”) I mean obviously. So what I’ve decided to do because I did have that man in — men in black experience which I wrote about in my book. And (“YOU KNOW”) I didn’t — I haven’t really noticed anything (“BUT” “NO”) for the longest time since then, which is a relief frankly. And I still am not sure exactly what that was because the people were acting so bizarre. I mean I don’t know what that was. And then you read things like The Montauk Project about 'time travel.' (“N”) And, of course, you get the feeling that this is misinformation too because the author — in fact, I was reading — I read this book recently. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this?
G: No, I haven’t.
Q: It’s totally —
G: (mentions having lived in the area)
Q: Oh really? Well I bet you know a few stories.
G: Um-huh.
Q: So (“I MEAN”) climate control, mind control, time travel. (“BUT”) I don’t know — (“I MEAN SEE”) it takes me more — I mean I sort’ve read this and it was not written very well. So I sort of look at it and think, (“WELL”) “This is interesting. (“BUT”) The time travel element.” You keep seeing — like I was looking at the books advertised. There are a lot of time travel books in what books that seem like they could be titled ‘disinformation.’ So I don’t know what the government’s (“NO”) objective is. I know at one point there was a campaign to — at least this was what was said somewhere — that they wanted aliens to have six fingers. I guess they wanted to dehumanify them. (“OR WHATEVER” “AND”) Right after I read this, (“NO”) you would read an article (somewhere else) that said this. I mean after hearing it claimed that this is what the government’s doing somewhere, then you see it culminating in articles at the same time so you just wonder. I mean I don’t really — it’s hard really to say. So — but here, you can have a copy of this to look at. (“IT’S”) It’s just interesting to see their backgrounds. And two of them didn’t show up. I mean some of them I don’t think have anything to do with the government, obviously. But others I’m not so sure. (“AN IT”) It’s sad. What I’ve decided to do is — you’re not going to change the system, especially with the military mentality, from the top down. I mean it’s not going to happen. So I figure I’m going to start at the bottom. And if each person at the bottom just works on their boss. (“I MEAN”) Because really when you look at it, the CIA, the FBI — I mean these are all associations that don’t really exist. They’re just names. They’re evil empires that people have sort’ve bought into (“WHEN”) for whatever reasons. (“NO”) They want to get career, money, whatever. The military is another one. I mean is it an accident that there are all those vaccines causing problems for people in the military? I mean is that a lesson to think before you do something? I mean it would happen to them. Have you ever had any vaccines?
G: Yeah, I’ve had them.
Q: Euuchh. See? I mean you know how dangerous they are.
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: ONE OF GUY’S ASSOCIATES SUDDENLY ENTERS THE CONFERENCE ROOM.)
S: Hey Guy, I’m going to need those blurbs today on —
G: Okay. Yeah.
S: — short order, actually. Within an hour so —
G: Okay . . .
Q: Okay, we’ll finish up. Okay, I’m going to give you — here’s the tape to look at.
G: Great. (“ANYWAY”) Okay, great. Q: Okay. And then if you have any questions, let me know.
G: Thanks once again for . . . (we go to the reception area)
Q: Okay, so — and I’ll just contact you — (“I”) tried contacting you once by — what is it? — oh voicemail. But do you have voicemail yet?
G: Yeah, I guess we do now. Yeah.
Q: You do? Okay. Because I tried today. What extension number?
G: (to receptionist) Do you know what extension number we are? . . .
K: Your extension? (glances at listing)
G: Yeah.
K: Your extension —
Q: I think Email is probably —
K: You don’t have —
G: Oh, I don’t have one yet.
Q: Oh, okay.
G: So that’s a problem. Okay, so Email’s the best way . . .
Q: Okay. (“WELL”) I know how it feels. The staff writers — are you a staff writer?
G: Um-huh.
Q: Okay. They’re always the most expendable people in the department. Speaking from experience. At Paramount — I mean who ever thought that they would get rid of the writers? (Yet it was) the best thing that ever happened to me. So, anyway, okay thanks for everything.
G: Great. Thanks a lot.
Q: Oh I should maybe get my parking validation. What’s your name, by the way?
K: Kianna.
Q: I’m into names. I like looking — (“IN”) I sort of do ‘psychic readings’ with names.
K: Oohh.
Q: How do you spell it?
K: K — I — A — N — N — A.
Q: What’s your last name?
K: James.
Q: James, okay. Do you have a middle name?
K: Larie.
Q: Okay, well I’m getting very positive things from that name.
K: You are?
Q: Yeah. Are you temping? Are you a temp?
K: No.
Q: No. (“I’VE DO[NE]”) I’ve done some temping. Right next door. Ooouuu.
K: Oh.
Q: You’re lucky.
K: (laughs) (puts on stickers)
Q: What is ‘Slywire,’ by the way? I mean what — is it? Do you know what kind of a webzine it is?
K: . . . I’m not sure because . . . just got finally the name. So I’m not so sure . . .
Q: You start with the name and then worry about the content. Okay. Well good luck with everything.
( . . . )
Q: (speaking into tape recorder) I talk too much at times. I hope I didn’t wreck his impression of me. But you want to share certain bits of information. I certainly shared everything I wanted to and more. But it might’ve sounded a little bit — well I do live in the valley.
( . . . )
Q: I just gave a homeless person a dollar. Even though I felt bad about it because I sort of crumpled it up and threw it out the window because I didn’t want to impede traffic. Ohh, what a nasty situation the world is in.
( . . . )
Q: So today I checked my Email and I had 163 pieces of Email. I guess from Eldon Taylor and a lot of them were undeliverable mail. It says, “This message was addressed to a user that does not exist at this address . . .” blah blah blah. This is really strange because some of them show up as messages to me from addresses I’ve never heard of before. For example, this one says, “Please quit Emailing me if you cannot get it right the first time. My Email had about twenty things sent. It was crowding my mailbox. Thank you.” And why did I get this? Someone else wrote: “Dear Dr. Taylor, I received 75 copies of this that did not go through or were bad. I also received a couple of Emails from strangers addressed to you. They were irate because they had received multiple bad copies.” Someone else wrote: “Stop sending this to me. If you keep it up, I’ll report you to AOL.” (the Email said:) “Posted to Inner Talk News by —” I thought I had finally received some publicity of some sort. Ironically, the original message was all about stress and how to deal with it. So eventually it starts trying to sell audio tapes. I guess there’s a video program too. Anyway, it’s a “deluxe collection library. Normally $119.88 that is now $69 plus shipping.”
( . . . )
Q: Well it’s now past 4:30 p.m. and I’m still getting massive Emails from that faltering Email newsgroup but I’ve been busy this morning in between taking Ellen to dialysis. I first read something very disturbing at the “Sightings” radio program website entitled “UK Ufologist Max Burns Convicted On Drug Charges.” This was a clipping from The Sheffield Star dated 9-21-99. I’ll read it.
Former disc jockey Maxwell Burns is today behind bars waiting sentence after a jury convicted him of possessing almost a thousand amphetamine tablets. He collected the drugs from a grass verge close to the M1 motorway in Nottinghamshire and planned to supply them through the pubs and clubs of South Yorkshire.
But the 36-year-old was stopped in his tracks by the drug squad who were already targetting his passenger, Suzanne Bradley. As they were driven off the M1 at Tinsley by her pal Louise Goodison, police swooped and recovered the tablets.
They would have been sold off as Ecstacy tablets to South Yorkshire’s nightclubbers. Burns, of Ferrars Road, Tinsley, was convicted of possessing the drugs and supplying 50 of them to Bradley. Bradley, aged 35, of Molineux Road, Shiregreen, admitted possessing them with intent to supply and was sentenced to 120 hours community service.
Charges of possessing the drugs with intent to supply against 33-year-old Goodison, of Cobnar Road, Woodseats, were dropped. The court was told Bradley bought them from Burns for 150 on the return journey to Sheffield and would have shared them with her boyfriend, Sheffield Crown Court was told. Burns is to be sentenced on Friday, September 24.
But the 36-year-old was stopped in his tracks by the drug squad who were already targetting his passenger, Suzanne Bradley. As they were driven off the M1 at Tinsley by her pal Louise Goodison, police swooped and recovered the tablets.
They would have been sold off as Ecstacy tablets to South Yorkshire’s nightclubbers. Burns, of Ferrars Road, Tinsley, was convicted of possessing the drugs and supplying 50 of them to Bradley. Bradley, aged 35, of Molineux Road, Shiregreen, admitted possessing them with intent to supply and was sentenced to 120 hours community service.
Charges of possessing the drugs with intent to supply against 33-year-old Goodison, of Cobnar Road, Woodseats, were dropped. The court was told Bradley bought them from Burns for 150 on the return journey to Sheffield and would have shared them with her boyfriend, Sheffield Crown Court was told. Burns is to be sentenced on Friday, September 24.
Q: Well my first response was I read Max’s Email to me a few times and he seemed so forthright and diligent. And I remember reading his articles that were so well researched and I remember even sort of the quiet, rumpled picture of him sitting at his computer from one of them. And I just thought, “There’s just no way.” This must be a set-up as only happens too often in UFOlogy. And not only that but this article was written so strangely. It didn’t quote him in terms of what he was doing. It treated it all very factually, saying exactly what it was he planned to do but this wasn’t a quote. And then, of course, it said that they were “already targetting his passenger” so, of course, that implied something else entirely. And then, of course, it stated that this woman who admitted evil intentions was let off to only community service. So there’s another article which I read. It’s also attributed to The Sheffield Star. It doesn’t specify the difference between the first portion and this portion. They’re both dated 9-21-99. It says:
By day, harmless UFO buff Max Burns wrote about his own “alien abduction.” But by night the Sheffield city centre DJ was involved in the seedier world of drug dealing.
Now he faces being abducted for real – courtesy of Her Majesty’s Prisons. Burns, aged 37, became well-known to UFO enthusiasts on the internet where he described how he was “abducted” by aliens when he was youngster. Cheshire-born Burns said he wanted to act as a counsellor for other people who claimed they had been kidnapped by aliens.
He claimed they left an “implant” in his leg and believed aliens were responsible for spreading ME – so-called yuppie flu – to people they abducted.
Burns became convinced the police and security services had launched a massive cover up.
In an article in a UFO fanzine, Burns wrote that he believed a flying saucer had shot down an RAF Tornado jet after a chase over the city in 1997. And he believed he was being followed by security services who were bugging his phone because of what he had discovered about the case. Burns claimed he was involved in probing what he calls “the Sheffield UFO incident” when he was arrested on suspicion of drug dealing. Sheffield Crown Court heard this week that Burns was being followed by the police – but they were looking for illegal drugs, not UFOs. Drug Squad detectives had been following the DJ as part of a covert operation against dealers.
And officers saw Burns speaking to a man in another car and retrieving a bag from a grass verge after a late night rendezvous at a motorway junction. When police swooped on the car driven by a woman friend of Burns as it left the M1 near Tinsley they found almost 1,000 amphetamine tablets hidden inside a carrier bag.
Burns denied any knowledge of the drugs, but back seat passenger Suzanne Bradley told the jury she had bought 50 of the tablets – designed to look like the dance drug Ecstacy – from him on the journey back to Sheffield. Bradley told the court she met Burns when he was a disc jockey and described him as “strange” because of his obsession with aliens and UFOs.
Now he faces being abducted for real – courtesy of Her Majesty’s Prisons. Burns, aged 37, became well-known to UFO enthusiasts on the internet where he described how he was “abducted” by aliens when he was youngster. Cheshire-born Burns said he wanted to act as a counsellor for other people who claimed they had been kidnapped by aliens.
He claimed they left an “implant” in his leg and believed aliens were responsible for spreading ME – so-called yuppie flu – to people they abducted.
Burns became convinced the police and security services had launched a massive cover up.
In an article in a UFO fanzine, Burns wrote that he believed a flying saucer had shot down an RAF Tornado jet after a chase over the city in 1997. And he believed he was being followed by security services who were bugging his phone because of what he had discovered about the case. Burns claimed he was involved in probing what he calls “the Sheffield UFO incident” when he was arrested on suspicion of drug dealing. Sheffield Crown Court heard this week that Burns was being followed by the police – but they were looking for illegal drugs, not UFOs. Drug Squad detectives had been following the DJ as part of a covert operation against dealers.
And officers saw Burns speaking to a man in another car and retrieving a bag from a grass verge after a late night rendezvous at a motorway junction. When police swooped on the car driven by a woman friend of Burns as it left the M1 near Tinsley they found almost 1,000 amphetamine tablets hidden inside a carrier bag.
Burns denied any knowledge of the drugs, but back seat passenger Suzanne Bradley told the jury she had bought 50 of the tablets – designed to look like the dance drug Ecstacy – from him on the journey back to Sheffield. Bradley told the court she met Burns when he was a disc jockey and described him as “strange” because of his obsession with aliens and UFOs.
(“SO”)
Q: There was a lot odd here. First of all, his age was different in both of the news stories. And it’s so strange that the woman in question admitted that she had broken the law. I mean usually when you read these stories no one admits anything. And there are little words here and there that tell you other things as well. Of course, here in the United States this is a laughable offense for someone just to be guilty of intending to do something. I mean here people get away with selling and doing all kinds of drug dealing — actual dealing and walk away if they have suits (on). And it didn’t really specify if this was a first offense or not. First of all, I can’t consider any of these details about Burns because really they’re hearsay and this whole article seems intended to make you want to cringe, no matter who it would be about. I mean they’re obviously trying to make him look like a complete flako and, of course, that was contrary to my estimation of him from what I had read. And notice they call it a “UFO fanzine.” Not magazine, not website but fanzine. So, anyway, I’ll read on. This next portion is from Tim Matthews, dated 9-21-99.
Q: There was a lot odd here. First of all, his age was different in both of the news stories. And it’s so strange that the woman in question admitted that she had broken the law. I mean usually when you read these stories no one admits anything. And there are little words here and there that tell you other things as well. Of course, here in the United States this is a laughable offense for someone just to be guilty of intending to do something. I mean here people get away with selling and doing all kinds of drug dealing — actual dealing and walk away if they have suits (on). And it didn’t really specify if this was a first offense or not. First of all, I can’t consider any of these details about Burns because really they’re hearsay and this whole article seems intended to make you want to cringe, no matter who it would be about. I mean they’re obviously trying to make him look like a complete flako and, of course, that was contrary to my estimation of him from what I had read. And notice they call it a “UFO fanzine.” Not magazine, not website but fanzine. So, anyway, I’ll read on. This next portion is from Tim Matthews, dated 9-21-99.
Dear All,
Over the least 18 months you will have been aware of the controversy surrounding Maxwell Burns, a self-styled British Ufologist.
He claimed, amongst other things, to be an ‘abductee’, a journalist, a former DJ, a respectable researcher and much more besides.
Today, at Sheffield Crown Court he was found guilty of very serious drugs dealing charges and is now in prison awaiting sentencing.
A small group of us in the UK warned that he was a dangerous, criminally-minded drug dealer. Our warnings were not taken seriously – even after it became public knowledge that Burns had been arrested and charged with the serious offense of “possessing 875 amphetamine tablets with intent to supply”.
Not surprisingly Burns claimed he’d never taken drugs, that he’d been ‘set-up by the intelligence services’ DESPITE the fact that he was caught in possession AND that his two co-conspirators pleaded guilty to the same charges!
In recent months Burns had engaged in a lunatic smear campaign against myself, in conjunction with another dubious character called Larry O’Hara, and several other researchers who were trying to warn the UFO community about his criminal activities. Burns posted a variety of illiterate, libelous and defamatory material that indicated exactly what kind of person he was.
The jury at Sheffield Crown Court soon realised that Burns was guilty on both counts – it’s just a pity that his supporters within British and American Ufology – and we all know who they are – were blinded by his fifth-rate research, his lies and deception and the wild conspiracy fantasies that he forced upon us all. They will have to answer the inevitable charges of having supported a criminally-minded drug dealer who tried to flood Sheffield’s streets with illegal substances.
In addition, you may remember that the British UFO Research Association invited Burns to speak at one if its flagship London Lectures despite our warnings. Whilst there are some excellent workers within BUFORA some serious questions must now be asked of those who invited Burns to speak and who claimed that they were ‘up-holding free speech’…
Furthermore, serious questions will be asked of the Cornwall UFO Group, who, in their utter stupidity and in full knowledge of the facts, invited Burns to address their forthcoming Conference. If they need a decent speaker who does lectures of expenses only without recourse to criminality, threats and drug-dealing then I volunteer to replace Burns….
(It should be noted that Burns made threats, via a supposedly secret hotmail account, against both myself and my wife Lynda – now pregnant with our first child. He admitted that he’d sent the e-mails later on.)
It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when piece of drug-dealing trash like Burns can be taken seriously by researchers who frequently appear on TV documentaries and debates. Can we trust their judgement any longer? Can we take the fence-sitters, who gave Burns the benefit of the doubt even though his con-conspirators had pleaded guilty, seriously??
What does this say about Ufology and the lunatics who claim that Burns was ‘set’ up’?
After all, in court Burns carried a folder with alien stickers all over it…..
For two years, myself, David Clarke, Andy Roberts and a handful of others tried to tell people about Maxwell Burns – but to no avail. Perhaps next time we’ll be taken rather more seriously.
Tim Matthews
Over the least 18 months you will have been aware of the controversy surrounding Maxwell Burns, a self-styled British Ufologist.
He claimed, amongst other things, to be an ‘abductee’, a journalist, a former DJ, a respectable researcher and much more besides.
Today, at Sheffield Crown Court he was found guilty of very serious drugs dealing charges and is now in prison awaiting sentencing.
A small group of us in the UK warned that he was a dangerous, criminally-minded drug dealer. Our warnings were not taken seriously – even after it became public knowledge that Burns had been arrested and charged with the serious offense of “possessing 875 amphetamine tablets with intent to supply”.
Not surprisingly Burns claimed he’d never taken drugs, that he’d been ‘set-up by the intelligence services’ DESPITE the fact that he was caught in possession AND that his two co-conspirators pleaded guilty to the same charges!
In recent months Burns had engaged in a lunatic smear campaign against myself, in conjunction with another dubious character called Larry O’Hara, and several other researchers who were trying to warn the UFO community about his criminal activities. Burns posted a variety of illiterate, libelous and defamatory material that indicated exactly what kind of person he was.
The jury at Sheffield Crown Court soon realised that Burns was guilty on both counts – it’s just a pity that his supporters within British and American Ufology – and we all know who they are – were blinded by his fifth-rate research, his lies and deception and the wild conspiracy fantasies that he forced upon us all. They will have to answer the inevitable charges of having supported a criminally-minded drug dealer who tried to flood Sheffield’s streets with illegal substances.
In addition, you may remember that the British UFO Research Association invited Burns to speak at one if its flagship London Lectures despite our warnings. Whilst there are some excellent workers within BUFORA some serious questions must now be asked of those who invited Burns to speak and who claimed that they were ‘up-holding free speech’…
Furthermore, serious questions will be asked of the Cornwall UFO Group, who, in their utter stupidity and in full knowledge of the facts, invited Burns to address their forthcoming Conference. If they need a decent speaker who does lectures of expenses only without recourse to criminality, threats and drug-dealing then I volunteer to replace Burns….
(It should be noted that Burns made threats, via a supposedly secret hotmail account, against both myself and my wife Lynda – now pregnant with our first child. He admitted that he’d sent the e-mails later on.)
It’s a pretty sad state of affairs when piece of drug-dealing trash like Burns can be taken seriously by researchers who frequently appear on TV documentaries and debates. Can we trust their judgement any longer? Can we take the fence-sitters, who gave Burns the benefit of the doubt even though his con-conspirators had pleaded guilty, seriously??
What does this say about Ufology and the lunatics who claim that Burns was ‘set’ up’?
After all, in court Burns carried a folder with alien stickers all over it…..
For two years, myself, David Clarke, Andy Roberts and a handful of others tried to tell people about Maxwell Burns – but to no avail. Perhaps next time we’ll be taken rather more seriously.
Tim Matthews
Q: So one of the glaring things about this article—written in such a manner that leads one to believe the author’s under the opinion that people take things at face value—is the contradiction here where it says that his two co-conspirators pleaded guilty to the same charges when the first article clearly had specified charges of possessing the drugs with intent to supply against Goodison were dropped. So this was followed by another article entitled “Ufology Fiddles Whilst Max Burns” from Andy Roberts, also dated 9-21-99. I’m going to resist making a ‘Bobs’ quip about that headline; however, I’ll read on.
I note with great interest the recent posts about Max Burns being found guilty of serious drug supply charges. Many people have been bored to tears over the past two years by the Max Burns saga and the ‘war’ which has taken place between him and other UFO researchers keen to promote the truth. It has diverted valuable time, money and resources from real UFO research.
Yet if Dave Clarke, Tim Matthews, Martin Jeffry and myself had not challenged Burns at every turn ufology and the public would be more duped than they have been. We defend our actions and will happily do it again the next time a charlatan rears his/her head in the subject.
No doubt we will learn of his sentence at the appropriate time but for the moment there are some useful points to be considered.
Max Burns appeared suddenly on the UFO scene a few years ago, claiming a long standing interest and research in the subject. He stated on many occasions that he was looking for ‘fame’ and ‘money’. His ‘big chance’ came with the alleged ‘Sheffield UFO Crash’, promoted as an ET event exclusively by Burns and which has been closely intertwined with his criminal activities ever since.
Many things could, and will, be said about Burns’ involvement with ufology and I think we have a right to say them now that his case is almost at an end. Here’s a few…………..
* At the 1997 BUFORA Conference Burns stated, in front of several witnesses, that he had bribed a key witness to the Sheffield case with marijuana.
* When challenged about this he ranted and raved, saying he had never used drugs in his life and was going to take legal action against me for libel. The facts have turned out somewhat different and Max is guilty of drug dealing. I repeat my statement again – that Max Burns bribed a key witness to the ‘Sheffield’ case with marijuana. The fact that this witness has disappeared into the woodwork notwithstanding, this incident is an excellent example of just one of Burns’ lies and manipulations of truth to fit his own fantasy prone view of the Sheffield ‘UFO Crash’. I trust any researcher stupid enough to subscribe to Burns’ views on this case will read these words carefully.
* The British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) were major supporters of Burns throughout this time. He was in communication with several council members and active members of BUFORA (Steve Gamble, Judith Jafaar, Malcolm Robinson, Richard Conway and many others according to emails Burns sent to me) eventually persuading them he had a right to spout his lies on a BUFORA lecture platform. BUFORA Council members were made fully aware of the nature of Burns’ evidence and of his involvement with drug dealing and yet, incredibly, gave him a platform to speak – taking his word over that of their Press Officer, Journal Editor and many other key personnel and investigators. BUFORA were also fully aware that many of the ‘facts’ Burns’ used in his presentation were imagined, untrue or unverifiable. This did not deter them and, in some bastardised version of promoting ‘free speech’ they allowed Burns to manipulate their organisation and membership.
BUFORAs Council’s grip on ufology in the UK, reality in general, and their understanding of ethical practice within the subject must be called into question over their sponsorship of both Burns and his interpretation of the Sheffield case.
The facts appear to be that BUFORA will sink to any level to produce ‘infotainment’ with which it can fool its’ membership. And that once again the elite ruling body on Council will have its’ way despite any representation from other officers or its membership. Democracy? I think not.
Perhaps BUFORA should make a public statement as to whether they now supported a convicted drug dealer and his lies about the Sheffield case?
Of course the deluded and the nutcases in ufology will not take heed of the Max Burns affair. Some will believe he is innocent and has been set up by ‘UK intelligence’, as he puts it. I only wish this were the case – he might have been stopped sooner. Others will continue to believe there is an extraterestrial element to the Sheffield case. All permutations of stupid believes will abound but the plain and simple facts are that ufology in the UK was taken is – yet again – by a huckster. And that – yet again – BUFORA gave its support to something it knew nothing of but thought it could make ufological capital and money from.
If ufology in the UK ever wishes to be taken seriously by the establishment it needs to learn the lessons of the Burns farrago. I very much doubt it will as long as its leaders are more interested in profit and promotionover hard fact.
I leave you with two thoughts:
* A careful reading of Burns’ court case makes it plain that not only was he a drug dealer but that he was intent on passing ordinary amphetaine off as Ecstasy. Therefore he cannot even claim any ideological reason for his drug dealing – this was ripping people off purely for financial gain.
* Burns, on many occasions accused myself and Dave Clarke of working for the government and being part of a plot to infiltrate and set-up ufologists in the UK. Isn’t it therefore extremely strange, to say the least, that Max Burns’ trail and sentencing comes in the same week as Dave Clarke leaves his post at the Sheffield Star and moves on to other things. As he said to me the other day ‘my work here is done’. Quite!
I hate to say we told you so……..
Happy Trails
Andy
Yet if Dave Clarke, Tim Matthews, Martin Jeffry and myself had not challenged Burns at every turn ufology and the public would be more duped than they have been. We defend our actions and will happily do it again the next time a charlatan rears his/her head in the subject.
No doubt we will learn of his sentence at the appropriate time but for the moment there are some useful points to be considered.
Max Burns appeared suddenly on the UFO scene a few years ago, claiming a long standing interest and research in the subject. He stated on many occasions that he was looking for ‘fame’ and ‘money’. His ‘big chance’ came with the alleged ‘Sheffield UFO Crash’, promoted as an ET event exclusively by Burns and which has been closely intertwined with his criminal activities ever since.
Many things could, and will, be said about Burns’ involvement with ufology and I think we have a right to say them now that his case is almost at an end. Here’s a few…………..
* At the 1997 BUFORA Conference Burns stated, in front of several witnesses, that he had bribed a key witness to the Sheffield case with marijuana.
* When challenged about this he ranted and raved, saying he had never used drugs in his life and was going to take legal action against me for libel. The facts have turned out somewhat different and Max is guilty of drug dealing. I repeat my statement again – that Max Burns bribed a key witness to the ‘Sheffield’ case with marijuana. The fact that this witness has disappeared into the woodwork notwithstanding, this incident is an excellent example of just one of Burns’ lies and manipulations of truth to fit his own fantasy prone view of the Sheffield ‘UFO Crash’. I trust any researcher stupid enough to subscribe to Burns’ views on this case will read these words carefully.
* The British UFO Research Association (BUFORA) were major supporters of Burns throughout this time. He was in communication with several council members and active members of BUFORA (Steve Gamble, Judith Jafaar, Malcolm Robinson, Richard Conway and many others according to emails Burns sent to me) eventually persuading them he had a right to spout his lies on a BUFORA lecture platform. BUFORA Council members were made fully aware of the nature of Burns’ evidence and of his involvement with drug dealing and yet, incredibly, gave him a platform to speak – taking his word over that of their Press Officer, Journal Editor and many other key personnel and investigators. BUFORA were also fully aware that many of the ‘facts’ Burns’ used in his presentation were imagined, untrue or unverifiable. This did not deter them and, in some bastardised version of promoting ‘free speech’ they allowed Burns to manipulate their organisation and membership.
BUFORAs Council’s grip on ufology in the UK, reality in general, and their understanding of ethical practice within the subject must be called into question over their sponsorship of both Burns and his interpretation of the Sheffield case.
The facts appear to be that BUFORA will sink to any level to produce ‘infotainment’ with which it can fool its’ membership. And that once again the elite ruling body on Council will have its’ way despite any representation from other officers or its membership. Democracy? I think not.
Perhaps BUFORA should make a public statement as to whether they now supported a convicted drug dealer and his lies about the Sheffield case?
Of course the deluded and the nutcases in ufology will not take heed of the Max Burns affair. Some will believe he is innocent and has been set up by ‘UK intelligence’, as he puts it. I only wish this were the case – he might have been stopped sooner. Others will continue to believe there is an extraterestrial element to the Sheffield case. All permutations of stupid believes will abound but the plain and simple facts are that ufology in the UK was taken is – yet again – by a huckster. And that – yet again – BUFORA gave its support to something it knew nothing of but thought it could make ufological capital and money from.
If ufology in the UK ever wishes to be taken seriously by the establishment it needs to learn the lessons of the Burns farrago. I very much doubt it will as long as its leaders are more interested in profit and promotionover hard fact.
I leave you with two thoughts:
* A careful reading of Burns’ court case makes it plain that not only was he a drug dealer but that he was intent on passing ordinary amphetaine off as Ecstasy. Therefore he cannot even claim any ideological reason for his drug dealing – this was ripping people off purely for financial gain.
* Burns, on many occasions accused myself and Dave Clarke of working for the government and being part of a plot to infiltrate and set-up ufologists in the UK. Isn’t it therefore extremely strange, to say the least, that Max Burns’ trail and sentencing comes in the same week as Dave Clarke leaves his post at the Sheffield Star and moves on to other things. As he said to me the other day ‘my work here is done’. Quite!
I hate to say we told you so……..
Happy Trails
Andy
Q: This was very disturbing. Especially some of the things one could’ve inferred from that last article. So I wrote to Max and I decided I would copy Jeff Rense at “Sightings.” I wrote:
Max,
I don’t know when you will get this message, yet I wanted you to know that even if I wasn’t familiar with the Sheffield articles and read only the odd, apparently vengeful reports found at the “Sightings” website, I would’ve become suspicious. Of course, this is among my favorite cases with the ‘flying triangle’ resembling a Ouija Board pallet. I did send a press release about my website to Tim Matthews and Andy Roberts. I plan to place links to your Sheffield reports on my website as soon as possible (along with the “Sightings” coverage). I’ve always thought your reports were among the best documented evidence available concerning UFO cover-ups. When you have a chance to respond to these articles at http://www.sightings.com/ufo4/maxburns_u.htm — I would like to add them to my website and I would think Jeff Rense should be willing to do the same in the news forum he controls.
Mark Russell Bell
I don’t know when you will get this message, yet I wanted you to know that even if I wasn’t familiar with the Sheffield articles and read only the odd, apparently vengeful reports found at the “Sightings” website, I would’ve become suspicious. Of course, this is among my favorite cases with the ‘flying triangle’ resembling a Ouija Board pallet. I did send a press release about my website to Tim Matthews and Andy Roberts. I plan to place links to your Sheffield reports on my website as soon as possible (along with the “Sightings” coverage). I’ve always thought your reports were among the best documented evidence available concerning UFO cover-ups. When you have a chance to respond to these articles at http://www.sightings.com/ufo4/maxburns_u.htm — I would like to add them to my website and I would think Jeff Rense should be willing to do the same in the news forum he controls.
Mark Russell Bell
Q: So, anyway, a little while later I did get a response from Jeff which was very surprising and what it said was even more surprising. It said:
Thanks, Mark. Will post this. Confidentially, in all the correspondence with Max, it always seemed clear he was totally sincere…and doing his damndest to pursue something he completely believed in. Too bad that he stubbed his toe on this..
Q: So I was dumbstruck. He’s going to post this after all the Email I’ve sent him? This he’s going to post?! And then he’s going to say something with the word “confidentially”? He really thinks I would keep anything confidential? So, anyway, I hurried off another Email in response to this Email and I just wrote:
Jeff,
Please note that the Sheffield Incident reports by Max Burns are posted as follows —
http://www.abduct.com/aaer/f07.htm
http://www.abduct.com/aaer/f08.htm
http://www.abduct.com/aaer/f09.htm
Here is the press release concerning my website (as mentioned). It is about time this was covered at www.sightings.com
Thanks,
Mark Russell Bell
Please note that the Sheffield Incident reports by Max Burns are posted as follows —
http://www.abduct.com/aaer/f07.htm
http://www.abduct.com/aaer/f08.htm
http://www.abduct.com/aaer/f09.htm
Here is the press release concerning my website (as mentioned). It is about time this was covered at www.sightings.com
Thanks,
Mark Russell Bell
Q: Oops — so I put f08 twice by accident (corrected for link above). Oh well. And then my recent expanded version of the press release that’s already at my website. So, anyway, I sent this at 11:27 a.m. The first Email I had sent at 9:46 a.m. and received a response at 12:36 with the three hours difference EDT. At 12:13, the “Sightings” website didn’t have any new additions but later when I checked it at around 3:30 it did. A lot of new articles and the article about Max had been appended with my Email although it didn’t say “update” as usually happens when something is added. So, in posting my Email, he did break it down into separate paragraphs, adding “(Sheffield Case)” after “this,” (at start of second paragraph) which I think is a quite amusing change when you really think about it. So it does say “Comment From Mark Russell Bell” with my Email address so we’ll see if I get any responses. So, based on this and the previous Email I received from him where he took a very apologetic tone and I think he signed it even “regards” — there must be some reason why he can’t mention my website at www.sightings.com
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: ON 9-24-99 THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES WERE ADDED TO THE ‘MAX BURNS’ ARTICLE WITH “UPDATE” ADJACENT TO THE TITLE.)
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: ON 9-24-99 THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES WERE ADDED TO THE ‘MAX BURNS’ ARTICLE WITH “UPDATE” ADJACENT TO THE TITLE.)
Max Burns Jailed for 30 MonthsFrom David Clarke
For those following the trial of British UFO “researcher” Max Burns comes the news of his jail sentence. Judge Robertshaw at Sheffield Crown Court has described Burns not only as a drug dealer, but someone quite high up in the drugs dealing fraternity. Note Burns earlier claims on UFO Updates that he had never taken or dealt in drugs in his life.
The trial has shown once and for all that Max Burns is a criminal, and someone UFO research can well do without.
Those who have supported Burns with his lies and fantasies over the last two years should reflect today on how easily they had the wool pulled over their eyes.
If they can be so easily taken in by this man, what does this say about their critical faculties when it comes to assessing UFO cases? Despite informal warnings from myself and others including Andy Roberts and Tim Matthews, our fears were ignored by BUFORA and a number of well-known British UFOlogists whose silence in the wake of these revelations is deafening. They should read the following story very carefully and reflect on this whole sad, sorry saga:
From the Sheffield Star September 24, 1999:
Jail Term for Drugs DealerEx-DJ locked up for 30 months.
By Roy Emery
A FORMER disc jockey who was caught with almost 1,000 amphetamine tablets was jailed for 30 months. Maxwell Burns was sentenced after being caught in a car bringing the drugs into Sheffield.
Had he not been stopped, the drugs would have made a sizeable contribution to the nightclub scene in South Yorkshire, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
The 36-year-old was described by Judge Patrick Robertshaw as a “wholesaler” who would have sold them on to retailers.
He told Burns: “You were some way up the hierarchy.” Burns, of Ferrars Road, Tinsley, was convicted earlier this week of possessing the drugs with intent to supply, and supplying 50 of the tablets to Suzanne Bradley, a passenger in the car.
During the trial, the court heard that Burns picked up the drugs in a carrier bag just off junction 29 of the M1 motorway.
But on the return journey police keeping a surveillance on the car he was travelling in pounced as it left the motorway at Tinsley.
Before he was jailed, it was revealed that in 1992 Burns saved a Derby police officer from a severe beating at the hands of three assailants.
Judge Robertshaw said this deed had earned the defendant a reduction in sentence, because he originally intended to jail Burns for longer.
For those following the trial of British UFO “researcher” Max Burns comes the news of his jail sentence. Judge Robertshaw at Sheffield Crown Court has described Burns not only as a drug dealer, but someone quite high up in the drugs dealing fraternity. Note Burns earlier claims on UFO Updates that he had never taken or dealt in drugs in his life.
The trial has shown once and for all that Max Burns is a criminal, and someone UFO research can well do without.
Those who have supported Burns with his lies and fantasies over the last two years should reflect today on how easily they had the wool pulled over their eyes.
If they can be so easily taken in by this man, what does this say about their critical faculties when it comes to assessing UFO cases? Despite informal warnings from myself and others including Andy Roberts and Tim Matthews, our fears were ignored by BUFORA and a number of well-known British UFOlogists whose silence in the wake of these revelations is deafening. They should read the following story very carefully and reflect on this whole sad, sorry saga:
From the Sheffield Star September 24, 1999:
Jail Term for Drugs DealerEx-DJ locked up for 30 months.
By Roy Emery
A FORMER disc jockey who was caught with almost 1,000 amphetamine tablets was jailed for 30 months. Maxwell Burns was sentenced after being caught in a car bringing the drugs into Sheffield.
Had he not been stopped, the drugs would have made a sizeable contribution to the nightclub scene in South Yorkshire, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
The 36-year-old was described by Judge Patrick Robertshaw as a “wholesaler” who would have sold them on to retailers.
He told Burns: “You were some way up the hierarchy.” Burns, of Ferrars Road, Tinsley, was convicted earlier this week of possessing the drugs with intent to supply, and supplying 50 of the tablets to Suzanne Bradley, a passenger in the car.
During the trial, the court heard that Burns picked up the drugs in a carrier bag just off junction 29 of the M1 motorway.
But on the return journey police keeping a surveillance on the car he was travelling in pounced as it left the motorway at Tinsley.
Before he was jailed, it was revealed that in 1992 Burns saved a Derby police officer from a severe beating at the hands of three assailants.
Judge Robertshaw said this deed had earned the defendant a reduction in sentence, because he originally intended to jail Burns for longer.
(TRANSCRIBER’ S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS POSTED AT THE “SIGHTINGS” RADIO SHOW WEBSITE ON OCTOBER 6, 1999.)
UFO Researcher Maxwell Burns Responds To Drug ConvictionFrom UFO UpDates – TorontoPosted for Maxwell Burns10-6-99
To UFO UpDates:
This is the first legal opportunity I have had to speak about the case. If the dogs have finished tearing at my flesh I would like to enlighten you as to this travesty of British justice. I would also like to talk about the rules of evidence which you have heard Matthews, Roberts and Clarke talk about so much.
On the day of the trial the co-accused Suzanne Bradley and Louise Goodison cut an immunity deal with the police and turned ‘Queens’ evidence which meant they gave evidence for the crown. On the stand Goodison admitted under cross-examination that she had previously lied and accused her housemate Bradley of lying.
Bradley took the stand and accused Goodison of lying. My barrister then listed a large list of convictions that Bradley has already (this was unknown to me and incidentally Bradley’s ex-fellow, the father of her son, has just finished a 14 year sentence for heroin importation).
These previous convictions include four offences of theft, handling stolen goods and, 1 month before she was arrested with me, a drug-raid at her home found her in possession of cocaine. She admitted to being the target of Operation Morph (the name given to the operation during which I was arrested). Before this time the police had never heard of me.
One amazing thing about this case is the complete lack of forensic evidence. Four police officers (whose statements all at one point or another contradict each other) claim I handled this large plastic bag which I supposedly touched with both hands without gloves and then pushed under the cars handbrake. Yet not one fingerprint was found on it. Not one unique little fingerprint on a bag I was supposed to have held and then pushed between two car seats. My barrister in light of this fact asked if I had seen or handled this bag. I replied no.
He asked all four officers if they had seen me with the bag and they said yes. My barrister asked if the bag had been sent for testing – it had. Now for fingerprint evidence to be admissible in court 14 reference points are required but there were none. My barrister asked all of the officers if I had been wearing gloves or if gloves had been found in the car. They had not.
The bag was tested and no prints were found. So how could I have handled it? My barrister accused all four men of lying and attempting to fabricate evidence. He directly asked the officer in charge of the case if my fingerprints had been found, they had not!
Now all I have just said is a matter of public record in a court of law. I have been convicted with no evidence, the four police officers had only conflicting stories to back up their allegations. No one in the car was wearing gloves, whoever placed the package in the car either was wearing gloves or was very careful. I could say more but I am in the process of putting together an appeal.
When DC [Detective Constable] Guite – the officer in charge took the stand my interview tapes were played in full from 2 years ago, DC Guite was one of the officers who had questioned me at the time during all three of the interviews. My barrister asked Guite “my client answered every single question you asked him during questioning didn’t he?” Guite replied yes.
My barrister then asked “My clients version of events did not waiver at all in the three interviews did it?”
Guite replied “No it did not”
Guite admitted on the stand that I had supplied details of the second hand car dealer who I had arranged to meet that night, the one the crown barrister had stated did not exist.
Under the law in a police investigation it is the investigating officers’ duty to follow all the leads supplied by a defendant even if the finger of guilt may lead away from the defendant because of it.
I had supplied the phone number of the man while detained so that the police could verify my story. My barrister asked if they had contacted the car dealer, to check out the information supplied by me. Guite replied that he had not and had to admit that he had not followed up this lead effectively breaching operating procedure.
In fact all four officers had to admit that they had breached procedure in investigating and bringing this case to court.
Now whilst you read this next paragraph keep in mind that in sentencing the judge said I am high up in the drugs world, a ‘wholesaler’.
My barrister asked Guite if he had carried out a full financial check on myself to discover if I had any secret stashes of money, gold, cars, share, houses etc. that could be confiscated in the event of a conviction. Guite replied they had. My barrister asked if they had found any of the trappings associated with such a lifestyle, he replied they had not.
My barrister asked Guite if I had any previous convictions or cautions. Guite replied that I did not.
My barrister asked about the search of my home and whether any evidence such as drugs, money, lists of names or scales had been found. Guite replied that they had not found any evidence at my home but when prompted admitted they had found drug dealing paraphernalia at the home of Suzanne Bradley.
There was no evidence offered to back up the allegations of four police officers (who all admitted breaching procedure) and the two co-defendants. There is no evidence and I should not have been found guilty.
Here is an interesting thought for all of you who have been following the Sheffield case. Do you think that it would be a big break in deciding the true facts about the incident if someone were to produce an audio cassette of the launch of the Tornado jets from the base. All the jet-to-base chatter and the pilot-to-pilot chatter and all the police-radio chatter between Ecclefield police station and officers on the ground that night – recorded by a radio ham? It would certainly settle the matter or whether the jets were scrambled on red alert or were just on a training mission, wouldn’t it? Watch this screen!
I am due for release on the 19th December 2000 if I do not win the appeal. Those of you in ufology who know me know I am not a drug dealer, anyone who would like to keep in touch with me and maybe send me some reading material or articles etc. for which I would be very grateful can do so by writing to:
Maxwell Burns DL8712 HMP Oultcourse Higher Lane Fazakerley Liverpool L9 7LH
I remain and am most sincerely
Maxwell Brierley BurnsConvict DL8712(As relayed via letter to a trusted friend)
To UFO UpDates:
This is the first legal opportunity I have had to speak about the case. If the dogs have finished tearing at my flesh I would like to enlighten you as to this travesty of British justice. I would also like to talk about the rules of evidence which you have heard Matthews, Roberts and Clarke talk about so much.
On the day of the trial the co-accused Suzanne Bradley and Louise Goodison cut an immunity deal with the police and turned ‘Queens’ evidence which meant they gave evidence for the crown. On the stand Goodison admitted under cross-examination that she had previously lied and accused her housemate Bradley of lying.
Bradley took the stand and accused Goodison of lying. My barrister then listed a large list of convictions that Bradley has already (this was unknown to me and incidentally Bradley’s ex-fellow, the father of her son, has just finished a 14 year sentence for heroin importation).
These previous convictions include four offences of theft, handling stolen goods and, 1 month before she was arrested with me, a drug-raid at her home found her in possession of cocaine. She admitted to being the target of Operation Morph (the name given to the operation during which I was arrested). Before this time the police had never heard of me.
One amazing thing about this case is the complete lack of forensic evidence. Four police officers (whose statements all at one point or another contradict each other) claim I handled this large plastic bag which I supposedly touched with both hands without gloves and then pushed under the cars handbrake. Yet not one fingerprint was found on it. Not one unique little fingerprint on a bag I was supposed to have held and then pushed between two car seats. My barrister in light of this fact asked if I had seen or handled this bag. I replied no.
He asked all four officers if they had seen me with the bag and they said yes. My barrister asked if the bag had been sent for testing – it had. Now for fingerprint evidence to be admissible in court 14 reference points are required but there were none. My barrister asked all of the officers if I had been wearing gloves or if gloves had been found in the car. They had not.
The bag was tested and no prints were found. So how could I have handled it? My barrister accused all four men of lying and attempting to fabricate evidence. He directly asked the officer in charge of the case if my fingerprints had been found, they had not!
Now all I have just said is a matter of public record in a court of law. I have been convicted with no evidence, the four police officers had only conflicting stories to back up their allegations. No one in the car was wearing gloves, whoever placed the package in the car either was wearing gloves or was very careful. I could say more but I am in the process of putting together an appeal.
When DC [Detective Constable] Guite – the officer in charge took the stand my interview tapes were played in full from 2 years ago, DC Guite was one of the officers who had questioned me at the time during all three of the interviews. My barrister asked Guite “my client answered every single question you asked him during questioning didn’t he?” Guite replied yes.
My barrister then asked “My clients version of events did not waiver at all in the three interviews did it?”
Guite replied “No it did not”
Guite admitted on the stand that I had supplied details of the second hand car dealer who I had arranged to meet that night, the one the crown barrister had stated did not exist.
Under the law in a police investigation it is the investigating officers’ duty to follow all the leads supplied by a defendant even if the finger of guilt may lead away from the defendant because of it.
I had supplied the phone number of the man while detained so that the police could verify my story. My barrister asked if they had contacted the car dealer, to check out the information supplied by me. Guite replied that he had not and had to admit that he had not followed up this lead effectively breaching operating procedure.
In fact all four officers had to admit that they had breached procedure in investigating and bringing this case to court.
Now whilst you read this next paragraph keep in mind that in sentencing the judge said I am high up in the drugs world, a ‘wholesaler’.
My barrister asked Guite if he had carried out a full financial check on myself to discover if I had any secret stashes of money, gold, cars, share, houses etc. that could be confiscated in the event of a conviction. Guite replied they had. My barrister asked if they had found any of the trappings associated with such a lifestyle, he replied they had not.
My barrister asked Guite if I had any previous convictions or cautions. Guite replied that I did not.
My barrister asked about the search of my home and whether any evidence such as drugs, money, lists of names or scales had been found. Guite replied that they had not found any evidence at my home but when prompted admitted they had found drug dealing paraphernalia at the home of Suzanne Bradley.
There was no evidence offered to back up the allegations of four police officers (who all admitted breaching procedure) and the two co-defendants. There is no evidence and I should not have been found guilty.
Here is an interesting thought for all of you who have been following the Sheffield case. Do you think that it would be a big break in deciding the true facts about the incident if someone were to produce an audio cassette of the launch of the Tornado jets from the base. All the jet-to-base chatter and the pilot-to-pilot chatter and all the police-radio chatter between Ecclefield police station and officers on the ground that night – recorded by a radio ham? It would certainly settle the matter or whether the jets were scrambled on red alert or were just on a training mission, wouldn’t it? Watch this screen!
I am due for release on the 19th December 2000 if I do not win the appeal. Those of you in ufology who know me know I am not a drug dealer, anyone who would like to keep in touch with me and maybe send me some reading material or articles etc. for which I would be very grateful can do so by writing to:
Maxwell Burns DL8712 HMP Oultcourse Higher Lane Fazakerley Liverpool L9 7LH
I remain and am most sincerely
Maxwell Brierley BurnsConvict DL8712(As relayed via letter to a trusted friend)
Q: So, of course, the book I happen to be reading now at the gym and at lunch, etc., ties in with my life as they usually do. This one is entitled The Ghost In My Life and was written by Susan B. Anthony, the grandniece and namesake of the famed suffragist. And I’ll share with you from it chapter 7 regarding the famous trial involving Susan’s famous relative. I also noticed early on page 61 some paranormal phenomena with the breaking of a cut-glass bowl. I mean I’ve experienced that before too — something breaks at the time when a certain meaning can be readily attached when it shouldn’t have broken, if you know what I mean. It helped her with her career evolution so have you ever in your life experience something breaking that led you on your career path. So I think here in this trial description we can see that honesty and honor in a trial is based upon the honesty and intentions of the people involved. Especially the judge, of course. So here we see early campaigns of disinformation and repression. So it’s nothing new — what’s going on in our world today. One of the ironic things is when we do something out of self-interest is that often it has nothing to do with our own interests at all but we’re merely being used in a chain of people following orders and pretending there is no personal responsibility. I guess that’s why we have the commandment “Thou shalt not participate in cover-ups.” And “Karma” is a good reminder. With this trial, the people involved obviously thought they were serving their country by keeping women from voting. People should pay close attention who participate in cover-ups and follow orders blindly.
7 “Obedience to God comes before obedience to men . . .”
The first real moral decision I was ever called on to make brought me closer to the heart and core of my great-aunt than I had ever been. It was during the autumn of my sophomore year at Rochester, and what I learned about the noblest hour of her life would help me one day in the most excruciating hour of mine.
After the summer at Cape Cod, with Richard gone, I began to fill the empty spaces with super-involvement in campus activities. I started majoring in political science just as Gerald had urged me. I helped organize a political debating club. I went to lots of rallies of both political parties, studying first-hand “the great game of politics” in the 1934 Congressional campaign.
One of the campaigners was Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who swept into town on behalf of her friend Caroline O’Day, running for congressman-at-large. Mrs. Harper Sibley, a leader of Rochester’s social and cultural life, invited me to meet the First Lady at her East Avenue home. The tall lady with the prominent upper teeth, her eyes crinkled by a beautiful smile, asked me to join her while she drank her cup of tea. This was the first of several meetings between us that would continue till the year before her death.
Now with her warm and friendly manner she put an awestruck college sophomore at ease, saying, “My dear Susan, I know what it must be like for you carrying your famous name in your great-aunt’s own hometown. My son, Franklin, is having the same difficulty at Harvard. It’s hard for you youngsters. Everything you do is spotlighted. But just be yourself. Don’t try to live up to the name and don’t fight it.”
But up until that fall I had quite enjoyed the spotlight that Mrs. Roosevelt had mentioned. The name had been good to me. It had got me my scholarship and a certain amount of not unappreciated attention. Before, in high school, I had always been simply “Sue Anthony.” Now I tended more and more to use the full “Susan B. Anthony.” I had learned the difference that the “B.” could make.
One day shortly after Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit, a Republican Party leader invited me to his Rochester hotel campaign headquarters. He flattered me by asking that I lend my voice and the luster of “that grand old name” to the campaign during the last crucial weeks before the election. The idea excited me and impulsively I almost said “yes.” After all, this was the prophecy Gerald had made. This could be the beginning of my real career, my political career, starting at the age of eighteen in Aunt Susan’s own home town. I was sparked by the thought of getting out before an audience. Gerald would love it too. He could coach me.
Then a second thought crept in unasked. What did I really know about the issues or candidates involved in either party?
The Republican Party leader, his face glistening in campaign fever, warmed up as he gave me the clincher. He had done his research. The Anthonys, he said, had all been Republicans, not only in Rochester, but in Kansas where Cousin Daniel had gone to Congress eleven times and Great-uncle Daniel had been a Republican mayor and owner of the Leavenworth Times. Susan B. herself, he said, had been an ardent Republican.
It sounded good, but I didn’t obey my first impulse. I thanked him, and told him that I would like to consider his offer. Then I went out and tried to learn more about local politics. I also went to the library to find out what I could about Aunt Susan’s political life. What rich ore I struck! My Republican friend had done his research all right, but he had not told the whole story.
I discovered that early on Susan B. indeed had backed the new Republican Party when it declared itself against slavery. Though voteless herself, because of her growing influence she was wooed by the Senate and House party leaders and sought after for the presidential conventions. Aunt Susan had been among the very first of the abolitionists to insist that Negroes have a vote, a startling and unpopular idea. Eventually the Republican leaders made a bargain with her. If she would drop temporarily her war for Negro freedom, they would include women, white and black, in the extension of the franchise. Aunt Susan deliberated, then agreed to their proposition. She set up a tiny office in Cooper Union, New York City. Living on twelve dollars a week, she trudged the sidewalks and directed the mammoth task of collecting 400,000 signatures to crystallize public opinion needed by the White House and Congress to legislate the Emancipation Proclamation into the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Her success was hailed by President Lincoln and Senator Sumner on down through the party ranks, but when she asked the Republican leaders to live up to their bargain, they brushed her aside.
“This is the Negro’s hour,” they said.
They would not, they said, “jeopardize” the black man’s vote for the even more radical enfranchisement of white and black women. The Republicans succeeded in enacting the Fourteenth and later the Fifteenth Amendments, for black men only. Women, white and black, remained voteless. This betrayal broke up the thirty-year alliance between the feminists and the antislavery movement. Hand-in-hand they had fought since the Grimké sisters first had dared to speak from a public platform for abolition. The feminist movement of the nineteenth century had grown out of women’s concern for the black man’s freedom, even as the “new feminism” of the 1970 has followed upon the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Aunt Susan was crushed by the party sellout. But she remained Republican when she case the vote that was heard around the nation. She committed what was probably the first act of civil disobedience by a woman in the cause of women.
Aunt Susan’s “crime” was voting. She and fifteen friends went to the polls to vote in order to obtain a Supreme Court decision on what she believed was woman’s right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. It spelled out: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens . . . .” Aunt Susan’s logic was simple and clear. Women are persons, and the amendment stated that all persons are citizens, thus the women were enfranchised as persons and citizens.
The “Sweet Sixteen,” as the press dubbed them, marched to the 8th Ward polling place in Rochester, a corner grocery store, on November 5, 1872. Aunt Susan overcame the stunned objections of the election officials by reading to them the letter of the Fourteenth Amendment. She also promised the inspectors and officials that she would pay any costs of prosecution if they were arrested for accepting the women’s ballots.
That night Susan wrote to her best friend, Mrs. Stanton: “Well, I have gone and done it! Positively voted the Republican ticket, straight, this a.m. at 7 . . . .”
The Republican administration “rewarded” her vote by ordering Rochester to arrest her and the other fifteen women immediately! On Thanksgiving Day, 1872, the doorbell rang at 17 Madison Street. Susan opened the door and saw a man in silk top hat and fine kid gloves. He was, he said, Deputy U.S. Marshal E. J. Keeney. Hemming and hawing in some embarrassment, the marshal handed Susan a warrant for her arrest. But, he said, it certainly wouldn’t be necessary for him to escort the prisoner to the courthouse; he was sure he could trust her. Susan, however, insisted upon the full show of force. She followed him on foot to the dingy office of the Commissioner of Elections in the courthouse, the same courthouse where fugitive slaves had been held when captured while fleeing to Canada.
All sixteen pleaded “not guilty” to the charge of illegal voting. They were placed under $500 bail each. Susan, who was selected by the commissioners as the test case, insisted upon a writ of habeas corpus. The other ladies were allowed to go home to their children and grandchildren while Susan was dealt with alone. Susan was remanded to the court in Albany where her writ of habeas corpus was not only denied, but her bail was raised to $1,000. She accepted both defeats with equanimity. Her main goal was to be jailed and to carry her case to the Supreme Court. Instead, her lawyer posted bail for her, saying, “I could not see a lady go to jail.”
Now she was disconsolate. She had lost the first attempt to go to jail. She lost again when the Grand Jury in Rochester indicted her. Instead of imprisoning her, the twenty men simply placed her in custody of the same Marshal Keeney. They set her trial for the summer court session.
In January she went to the Rochester station to embark for her annual suffrage convention in Washington. She saw a man pacing up and down the platform. He approached her swiftly. It was Marshal Keeney. Standing as if to block her way to the train, he officially ordered her to remain in Rochester within the jurisdiction of the court. Susan, smiling sweetly, ignored him and boarded the train, waving goodbye. It was Marshal Keeney’s first of many protests. He registered them officially each and every time she shuttled out of Rochester while she stumped the nation with her defense argument, “Is It a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?”
Her suffrage sisters in Washington and other cities enthusiastically applauded her courageous fight. But they couldn’t help her, they said. They had too many domestic duties at home. Susan had to go it alone. There was no committee to support her; no one helped her raise money for her defense. She was already burdened by the $10,000 debt of her now defunct newspaper The Revolution. Throughout the winter of 1873 she barnstormed the country, going further in debt in arduous one-night stands.
In a small Indiana town Aunt Susan, now fifty-three, in the midst of her lecture, fell unconscious to the floor. Writhing in pain when she regained consciousness she begged her friends to stop the Associated Press from wiring the story of her collapse, fearing that it might prove fatal to her aged, ailing mother in Rochester. They had to tell her the truth. The news had already gone out on the wire, not that Susan had fainted, but that she was dead! To prove the press wrong, Susan rose from her sick bed, notified the reporters, mounted the platform before a large audience, and gave her full lecture. AP had to wire the nation that Susan B. Anthony was alive and well and speaking in Marion, Indiana.
Far from recovered, she returned to Rochester to gamble further on her life by a crushing marathon of 29 talks in 29 different towns in 30 days. She won so many friends to her defense that the district attorney, fearing she might win any jury selected, sought and won a change of venue, and a further postponement of the trial. The case was moved to the beautiful lakeside town of Canandaigua in the next county, Ontario, almost forty miles from Rochester. This meant that Susan had to begin all over again. In three weeks she had to inform a brand-new territory. Only then did a sister suffragist show up to help her. Mrs Matilda Joslyn Gage left her fireside and children and spoke in 16 of the 37 districts. Aunt Susan covered the remaining 21 districts in 21 days. This time the prosecution did not bother to seek another change of venue. They had been assured that “Washington would take care of everything.”
Washington’ intervention first dictated the choice of judge to sit on the case. In an unprecedented move, a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Ward Hunt, was assigned to a Circuit Court case. Washington’s interference was glaring. This particular justice happened to be the protege of the U.S. senator from New York, Roscoe Conkling, Republican, an avowed long-time enemy of woman suffrage. The judge who should have tried the case had, for some unexplained reason, disqualified himself.
The trial of the United States v. Susan B. Anthony opened in the lovely old courthouse on the tree-lined main street of Canandaigua, on June 17, 1873. Crowding the courtroom along with the other spectators were ex-President Millard Fillmore and several U.S. congressmen, but not Senator Conkling.
Judge Hunt immediately declared Susan incompetent to testify on her own behalf, because she was a woman. Her lawyer, former Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Henry Selden, presented a three-hour argument supporting woman’s right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. He documented it with the opinions of other distinguished jurists. The district attorney made little effort to persuade the jury of Susan’s guilt. He knew that he did not have to. The jury’s work, like his own, had already been done for them. Justice Hunt took his charge to the jury out of his pocket. He had actually written it before he had even heard the arguments of the defense or prosecution. He read from this handily prepared charge, then directed the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty!
Susan’s lawyer immediately objected to this unprecedented breach of legal procedure.
“Take the verdict, Mr. Clerk,” the judge said, ignoring the objection.
Susan’s lawyer requested that the jury be polled. Justice Hunt ignored him, snapping, “Gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged.”
Until this moment Susan had not been allowed a single word in her own defense. Now the judge surprised her by asking, “Has the prisoner anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced?”
The prisoner had plenty to say. She had been lecturing the length and breadth of her land for twenty-five years. She had testified before Congressional committees, addressed Presidential conventions, spoken to giant audiences at Chautauquas. Primed by her years of national oratory she could and did speak with no notice or notes. In her strong, low-pitched voice, the prisoner gave the most famous speech of her life.
As I sat in Sibley Library at Rochester, reading that speech for the first time, I saw an Aunt Susan that I had never fully seen before. As I. nerves tingling, raced through her words, my respect for her, my sincere pride in her, flowered. I read the speech twice and still again that day. In years to come I was to read and reread it for comfort when I myself was to know what it was like to have the forces of government arrayed against one. Aunt Susan spoke out of a deep human revulsion against injustice. She spoke with the simple eloquence that is given only to a few, and only in times of deep urgency.
“Yes, Your Honor,” she began, “I have many things to say; for in your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights are all alike ignored. Robbed of that fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually but all of my sex are, by Your Honor’s verdict, doomed to political subjection under this so-called republican government.”
Justice Hunt, obviously regretting ever unleashing her advocacy interrupted.
“The Court cannot listen to a rehearsal of arguments the prisoner’s counsel has already consumed three hours in presenting.”
Susan was a veteran at being shut up by men who would not let her talk.
“May it please Your Honor, I am not arguing the question, but simply stating the reasons why sentence cannot, in justice, be pronounced against me. Your denial of my citizen’s right to vote is the denial of my right of consent as one of the governed, the denial of my right of representation as one of the taxed, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peer as an offender against the law, the denial of my sacred rights to life, liberty, property, and —”
Judge Hunt again tried to break in. Susan continued:
“But Your Honor will not deny me this one and only poor privilege of protest against this high-handed outrage upon my citizen’s rights. May it please the Court to remember that since the day of my arrest last November this is the first time that either myself or any person of my disfranchised class has been allowed a word of defense before judge or jury —”
Hunt barked, “The prisoner must sit down!”
The prisoner did not sit down. She kept standing.
“All my prosecutors from the 8th Ward corner-grocery-store politician, who entered the complaint, to the United States Marshal, Commissioner, District Attorney, District Judge, Your Honor on the bench, not one is my peer, but each and all my political sovereigns; and had Your Honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, even then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but naive or foreign, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, awake or asleep, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior, hence in no sense my peer.
“Even under such circumstances, a commoner of England, tried before a jury of lords, would have had far less cause to complain than should I, a woman, tried before a jury of men. Even my counsel, the Hon. Henry R. Selden, who has argued my cause so ably, so earnestly, so unanswerably before Your Honor, is my political sovereign. Precisely as no disenfranchised person is entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to the franchise, so none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to practice in the courts, and no woman can gain admission to the bar — hence, jury, judge, counsel, must all be of the superior class.”
Judge Hunt retorted, “The prisoner has been tried according to the established forms of law.”
Susan fought back. “Yes, Your Honor, but by forms of law all made by men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men, and against women; hence Your Honor’s ordered verdict of guilty, against a United States citizen for the exercise of ‘that citizen’s right to vote,’ simply because that citizen was a woman and not a man. But yesterday, the same man-made forms of law declared it a crime punishable with a one-thousand-dollar fine and six-months’ imprisonment, for you or me, or any of us, to give a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, or a night’s shelter to a panting fugitive while he was tracking his way to Canada. And every man or woman in whose veins coursed a drop of human sympathy violated that wicked law, reckless of consequences, and was justified in so doing. As then, the slaves who got their freedom must take it over, or under, or through the unjust forms of law, precisely so now women, to get their right to a voice in the government, take it; and I have taken mine, and mean to take it at every opportunity.”
And then she closed by saying, “But failing to get this justice—failing, even, to get a trial by a jury not of my peers—I ask not leniency at your hands — but to take the full rigors of the law.”
Then Susan did sit down. The judge thereupon ordered her to stand up.
He said swiftly, “The sentence of the Court is that you pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution.”
Susan stood her ground and said firmly, “May it please Your Honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock-in-trade that I possess is a ten-thousand-dollar debt, incurred by publishing my paper, The Revolution, four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison, and hang women while they deny them the right if representation in the government: and I shall work on with might and main to pay every dollar of that honest debt, but not a penny will go to this unjust claim. And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of that old revolutionary maxim, that ‘Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.'”
Aunt Susan stuck to both promises. She never did pay one cent of her fine or the costs of prosecution. And she continued until death to urge women to fight against tyranny. But she had lost more than her case, more than her unblemished health record. She had lost the one goal for which she had suffered that lonely, exhausting year, her right to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Hunt had seen to that. He barred her appeal, by simply refusing to abide by the law that she remain in prison until her fine was paid. Had he acted legally, Susan would have gone to jail. She could then have obtained a writ of habeas corpus carrying her case directly to the Supreme Court. The Court would have freed her immediately on the obvious ground that she had been denied trial by jury. But more important to her, she would have obtained a ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment’s enfranchisement of women.
During the days that I was reading about Aunt Susan and trying to make up my mind about accepting the Rochester political leader’s invitation to speak, it came to me that it would not be just a political decision, it would be a moral decision as well. I did not have a pastor or spiritual guide, but I did know a young rabbi, Phillip Bernstein, whom I had met while at summer camp and who had impressed me with his unclouded view of the world around him. I knocked at the door of his study in the temple a few blocks from campus. He welcomed me in his friendly, trained rabbi’s voice. I told him of my dilemma and asked what I should do.
“Do you agree with the Republicans?” he asked me.
“I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “I think I have only begun to study what the Republicans stand for.”
“Well, if I were you, I’d think seriously about giving your name and your voice to something you don’t know about.” He leaned across the desk, his hands lightly clasped before him. “Think of your own heritage of integrity, Susan. You’ll be asked a thousand times to give that name of yours to things. Wait until you are informed and really convinced. Integrity is our most important stock-in-trade.”
I left his study knowing he was right, went to the phone and told the political leader “no.” My decision had nothing to do with his being a Republican. I would have given the same answer to a Democrat.
For the first time, I felt Aunt Susan might have approved
The first real moral decision I was ever called on to make brought me closer to the heart and core of my great-aunt than I had ever been. It was during the autumn of my sophomore year at Rochester, and what I learned about the noblest hour of her life would help me one day in the most excruciating hour of mine.
After the summer at Cape Cod, with Richard gone, I began to fill the empty spaces with super-involvement in campus activities. I started majoring in political science just as Gerald had urged me. I helped organize a political debating club. I went to lots of rallies of both political parties, studying first-hand “the great game of politics” in the 1934 Congressional campaign.
One of the campaigners was Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who swept into town on behalf of her friend Caroline O’Day, running for congressman-at-large. Mrs. Harper Sibley, a leader of Rochester’s social and cultural life, invited me to meet the First Lady at her East Avenue home. The tall lady with the prominent upper teeth, her eyes crinkled by a beautiful smile, asked me to join her while she drank her cup of tea. This was the first of several meetings between us that would continue till the year before her death.
Now with her warm and friendly manner she put an awestruck college sophomore at ease, saying, “My dear Susan, I know what it must be like for you carrying your famous name in your great-aunt’s own hometown. My son, Franklin, is having the same difficulty at Harvard. It’s hard for you youngsters. Everything you do is spotlighted. But just be yourself. Don’t try to live up to the name and don’t fight it.”
But up until that fall I had quite enjoyed the spotlight that Mrs. Roosevelt had mentioned. The name had been good to me. It had got me my scholarship and a certain amount of not unappreciated attention. Before, in high school, I had always been simply “Sue Anthony.” Now I tended more and more to use the full “Susan B. Anthony.” I had learned the difference that the “B.” could make.
One day shortly after Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit, a Republican Party leader invited me to his Rochester hotel campaign headquarters. He flattered me by asking that I lend my voice and the luster of “that grand old name” to the campaign during the last crucial weeks before the election. The idea excited me and impulsively I almost said “yes.” After all, this was the prophecy Gerald had made. This could be the beginning of my real career, my political career, starting at the age of eighteen in Aunt Susan’s own home town. I was sparked by the thought of getting out before an audience. Gerald would love it too. He could coach me.
Then a second thought crept in unasked. What did I really know about the issues or candidates involved in either party?
The Republican Party leader, his face glistening in campaign fever, warmed up as he gave me the clincher. He had done his research. The Anthonys, he said, had all been Republicans, not only in Rochester, but in Kansas where Cousin Daniel had gone to Congress eleven times and Great-uncle Daniel had been a Republican mayor and owner of the Leavenworth Times. Susan B. herself, he said, had been an ardent Republican.
It sounded good, but I didn’t obey my first impulse. I thanked him, and told him that I would like to consider his offer. Then I went out and tried to learn more about local politics. I also went to the library to find out what I could about Aunt Susan’s political life. What rich ore I struck! My Republican friend had done his research all right, but he had not told the whole story.
I discovered that early on Susan B. indeed had backed the new Republican Party when it declared itself against slavery. Though voteless herself, because of her growing influence she was wooed by the Senate and House party leaders and sought after for the presidential conventions. Aunt Susan had been among the very first of the abolitionists to insist that Negroes have a vote, a startling and unpopular idea. Eventually the Republican leaders made a bargain with her. If she would drop temporarily her war for Negro freedom, they would include women, white and black, in the extension of the franchise. Aunt Susan deliberated, then agreed to their proposition. She set up a tiny office in Cooper Union, New York City. Living on twelve dollars a week, she trudged the sidewalks and directed the mammoth task of collecting 400,000 signatures to crystallize public opinion needed by the White House and Congress to legislate the Emancipation Proclamation into the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Her success was hailed by President Lincoln and Senator Sumner on down through the party ranks, but when she asked the Republican leaders to live up to their bargain, they brushed her aside.
“This is the Negro’s hour,” they said.
They would not, they said, “jeopardize” the black man’s vote for the even more radical enfranchisement of white and black women. The Republicans succeeded in enacting the Fourteenth and later the Fifteenth Amendments, for black men only. Women, white and black, remained voteless. This betrayal broke up the thirty-year alliance between the feminists and the antislavery movement. Hand-in-hand they had fought since the Grimké sisters first had dared to speak from a public platform for abolition. The feminist movement of the nineteenth century had grown out of women’s concern for the black man’s freedom, even as the “new feminism” of the 1970 has followed upon the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
Aunt Susan was crushed by the party sellout. But she remained Republican when she case the vote that was heard around the nation. She committed what was probably the first act of civil disobedience by a woman in the cause of women.
Aunt Susan’s “crime” was voting. She and fifteen friends went to the polls to vote in order to obtain a Supreme Court decision on what she believed was woman’s right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. It spelled out: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States are citizens . . . .” Aunt Susan’s logic was simple and clear. Women are persons, and the amendment stated that all persons are citizens, thus the women were enfranchised as persons and citizens.
The “Sweet Sixteen,” as the press dubbed them, marched to the 8th Ward polling place in Rochester, a corner grocery store, on November 5, 1872. Aunt Susan overcame the stunned objections of the election officials by reading to them the letter of the Fourteenth Amendment. She also promised the inspectors and officials that she would pay any costs of prosecution if they were arrested for accepting the women’s ballots.
That night Susan wrote to her best friend, Mrs. Stanton: “Well, I have gone and done it! Positively voted the Republican ticket, straight, this a.m. at 7 . . . .”
The Republican administration “rewarded” her vote by ordering Rochester to arrest her and the other fifteen women immediately! On Thanksgiving Day, 1872, the doorbell rang at 17 Madison Street. Susan opened the door and saw a man in silk top hat and fine kid gloves. He was, he said, Deputy U.S. Marshal E. J. Keeney. Hemming and hawing in some embarrassment, the marshal handed Susan a warrant for her arrest. But, he said, it certainly wouldn’t be necessary for him to escort the prisoner to the courthouse; he was sure he could trust her. Susan, however, insisted upon the full show of force. She followed him on foot to the dingy office of the Commissioner of Elections in the courthouse, the same courthouse where fugitive slaves had been held when captured while fleeing to Canada.
All sixteen pleaded “not guilty” to the charge of illegal voting. They were placed under $500 bail each. Susan, who was selected by the commissioners as the test case, insisted upon a writ of habeas corpus. The other ladies were allowed to go home to their children and grandchildren while Susan was dealt with alone. Susan was remanded to the court in Albany where her writ of habeas corpus was not only denied, but her bail was raised to $1,000. She accepted both defeats with equanimity. Her main goal was to be jailed and to carry her case to the Supreme Court. Instead, her lawyer posted bail for her, saying, “I could not see a lady go to jail.”
Now she was disconsolate. She had lost the first attempt to go to jail. She lost again when the Grand Jury in Rochester indicted her. Instead of imprisoning her, the twenty men simply placed her in custody of the same Marshal Keeney. They set her trial for the summer court session.
In January she went to the Rochester station to embark for her annual suffrage convention in Washington. She saw a man pacing up and down the platform. He approached her swiftly. It was Marshal Keeney. Standing as if to block her way to the train, he officially ordered her to remain in Rochester within the jurisdiction of the court. Susan, smiling sweetly, ignored him and boarded the train, waving goodbye. It was Marshal Keeney’s first of many protests. He registered them officially each and every time she shuttled out of Rochester while she stumped the nation with her defense argument, “Is It a Crime for a U.S. Citizen to Vote?”
Her suffrage sisters in Washington and other cities enthusiastically applauded her courageous fight. But they couldn’t help her, they said. They had too many domestic duties at home. Susan had to go it alone. There was no committee to support her; no one helped her raise money for her defense. She was already burdened by the $10,000 debt of her now defunct newspaper The Revolution. Throughout the winter of 1873 she barnstormed the country, going further in debt in arduous one-night stands.
In a small Indiana town Aunt Susan, now fifty-three, in the midst of her lecture, fell unconscious to the floor. Writhing in pain when she regained consciousness she begged her friends to stop the Associated Press from wiring the story of her collapse, fearing that it might prove fatal to her aged, ailing mother in Rochester. They had to tell her the truth. The news had already gone out on the wire, not that Susan had fainted, but that she was dead! To prove the press wrong, Susan rose from her sick bed, notified the reporters, mounted the platform before a large audience, and gave her full lecture. AP had to wire the nation that Susan B. Anthony was alive and well and speaking in Marion, Indiana.
Far from recovered, she returned to Rochester to gamble further on her life by a crushing marathon of 29 talks in 29 different towns in 30 days. She won so many friends to her defense that the district attorney, fearing she might win any jury selected, sought and won a change of venue, and a further postponement of the trial. The case was moved to the beautiful lakeside town of Canandaigua in the next county, Ontario, almost forty miles from Rochester. This meant that Susan had to begin all over again. In three weeks she had to inform a brand-new territory. Only then did a sister suffragist show up to help her. Mrs Matilda Joslyn Gage left her fireside and children and spoke in 16 of the 37 districts. Aunt Susan covered the remaining 21 districts in 21 days. This time the prosecution did not bother to seek another change of venue. They had been assured that “Washington would take care of everything.”
Washington’ intervention first dictated the choice of judge to sit on the case. In an unprecedented move, a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Ward Hunt, was assigned to a Circuit Court case. Washington’s interference was glaring. This particular justice happened to be the protege of the U.S. senator from New York, Roscoe Conkling, Republican, an avowed long-time enemy of woman suffrage. The judge who should have tried the case had, for some unexplained reason, disqualified himself.
The trial of the United States v. Susan B. Anthony opened in the lovely old courthouse on the tree-lined main street of Canandaigua, on June 17, 1873. Crowding the courtroom along with the other spectators were ex-President Millard Fillmore and several U.S. congressmen, but not Senator Conkling.
Judge Hunt immediately declared Susan incompetent to testify on her own behalf, because she was a woman. Her lawyer, former Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Henry Selden, presented a three-hour argument supporting woman’s right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. He documented it with the opinions of other distinguished jurists. The district attorney made little effort to persuade the jury of Susan’s guilt. He knew that he did not have to. The jury’s work, like his own, had already been done for them. Justice Hunt took his charge to the jury out of his pocket. He had actually written it before he had even heard the arguments of the defense or prosecution. He read from this handily prepared charge, then directed the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty!
Susan’s lawyer immediately objected to this unprecedented breach of legal procedure.
“Take the verdict, Mr. Clerk,” the judge said, ignoring the objection.
Susan’s lawyer requested that the jury be polled. Justice Hunt ignored him, snapping, “Gentlemen of the jury, you are discharged.”
Until this moment Susan had not been allowed a single word in her own defense. Now the judge surprised her by asking, “Has the prisoner anything to say why sentence should not be pronounced?”
The prisoner had plenty to say. She had been lecturing the length and breadth of her land for twenty-five years. She had testified before Congressional committees, addressed Presidential conventions, spoken to giant audiences at Chautauquas. Primed by her years of national oratory she could and did speak with no notice or notes. In her strong, low-pitched voice, the prisoner gave the most famous speech of her life.
As I sat in Sibley Library at Rochester, reading that speech for the first time, I saw an Aunt Susan that I had never fully seen before. As I. nerves tingling, raced through her words, my respect for her, my sincere pride in her, flowered. I read the speech twice and still again that day. In years to come I was to read and reread it for comfort when I myself was to know what it was like to have the forces of government arrayed against one. Aunt Susan spoke out of a deep human revulsion against injustice. She spoke with the simple eloquence that is given only to a few, and only in times of deep urgency.
“Yes, Your Honor,” she began, “I have many things to say; for in your ordered verdict of guilty, you have trampled under foot every vital principle of our government. My natural rights, my civil rights, my political rights are all alike ignored. Robbed of that fundamental privilege of citizenship, I am degraded from the status of citizen to that of a subject; and not only myself individually but all of my sex are, by Your Honor’s verdict, doomed to political subjection under this so-called republican government.”
Justice Hunt, obviously regretting ever unleashing her advocacy interrupted.
“The Court cannot listen to a rehearsal of arguments the prisoner’s counsel has already consumed three hours in presenting.”
Susan was a veteran at being shut up by men who would not let her talk.
“May it please Your Honor, I am not arguing the question, but simply stating the reasons why sentence cannot, in justice, be pronounced against me. Your denial of my citizen’s right to vote is the denial of my right of consent as one of the governed, the denial of my right of representation as one of the taxed, the denial of my right to a trial by a jury of my peer as an offender against the law, the denial of my sacred rights to life, liberty, property, and —”
Judge Hunt again tried to break in. Susan continued:
“But Your Honor will not deny me this one and only poor privilege of protest against this high-handed outrage upon my citizen’s rights. May it please the Court to remember that since the day of my arrest last November this is the first time that either myself or any person of my disfranchised class has been allowed a word of defense before judge or jury —”
Hunt barked, “The prisoner must sit down!”
The prisoner did not sit down. She kept standing.
“All my prosecutors from the 8th Ward corner-grocery-store politician, who entered the complaint, to the United States Marshal, Commissioner, District Attorney, District Judge, Your Honor on the bench, not one is my peer, but each and all my political sovereigns; and had Your Honor submitted my case to the jury, as was clearly your duty, even then I should have had just cause of protest, for not one of those men was my peer; but naive or foreign, white or black, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, awake or asleep, sober or drunk, each and every man of them was my political superior, hence in no sense my peer.
“Even under such circumstances, a commoner of England, tried before a jury of lords, would have had far less cause to complain than should I, a woman, tried before a jury of men. Even my counsel, the Hon. Henry R. Selden, who has argued my cause so ably, so earnestly, so unanswerably before Your Honor, is my political sovereign. Precisely as no disenfranchised person is entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to the franchise, so none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to practice in the courts, and no woman can gain admission to the bar — hence, jury, judge, counsel, must all be of the superior class.”
Judge Hunt retorted, “The prisoner has been tried according to the established forms of law.”
Susan fought back. “Yes, Your Honor, but by forms of law all made by men, interpreted by men, administered by men, in favor of men, and against women; hence Your Honor’s ordered verdict of guilty, against a United States citizen for the exercise of ‘that citizen’s right to vote,’ simply because that citizen was a woman and not a man. But yesterday, the same man-made forms of law declared it a crime punishable with a one-thousand-dollar fine and six-months’ imprisonment, for you or me, or any of us, to give a cup of cold water, a crust of bread, or a night’s shelter to a panting fugitive while he was tracking his way to Canada. And every man or woman in whose veins coursed a drop of human sympathy violated that wicked law, reckless of consequences, and was justified in so doing. As then, the slaves who got their freedom must take it over, or under, or through the unjust forms of law, precisely so now women, to get their right to a voice in the government, take it; and I have taken mine, and mean to take it at every opportunity.”
And then she closed by saying, “But failing to get this justice—failing, even, to get a trial by a jury not of my peers—I ask not leniency at your hands — but to take the full rigors of the law.”
Then Susan did sit down. The judge thereupon ordered her to stand up.
He said swiftly, “The sentence of the Court is that you pay a fine of one hundred dollars and the costs of the prosecution.”
Susan stood her ground and said firmly, “May it please Your Honor, I shall never pay a dollar of your unjust penalty. All the stock-in-trade that I possess is a ten-thousand-dollar debt, incurred by publishing my paper, The Revolution, four years ago, the sole object of which was to educate all women to do precisely as I have done, rebel against your man-made, unjust, unconstitutional forms of law, that tax, fine, imprison, and hang women while they deny them the right if representation in the government: and I shall work on with might and main to pay every dollar of that honest debt, but not a penny will go to this unjust claim. And I shall earnestly and persistently continue to urge all women to the practical recognition of that old revolutionary maxim, that ‘Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.'”
Aunt Susan stuck to both promises. She never did pay one cent of her fine or the costs of prosecution. And she continued until death to urge women to fight against tyranny. But she had lost more than her case, more than her unblemished health record. She had lost the one goal for which she had suffered that lonely, exhausting year, her right to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. Justice Hunt had seen to that. He barred her appeal, by simply refusing to abide by the law that she remain in prison until her fine was paid. Had he acted legally, Susan would have gone to jail. She could then have obtained a writ of habeas corpus carrying her case directly to the Supreme Court. The Court would have freed her immediately on the obvious ground that she had been denied trial by jury. But more important to her, she would have obtained a ruling on the Fourteenth Amendment’s enfranchisement of women.
During the days that I was reading about Aunt Susan and trying to make up my mind about accepting the Rochester political leader’s invitation to speak, it came to me that it would not be just a political decision, it would be a moral decision as well. I did not have a pastor or spiritual guide, but I did know a young rabbi, Phillip Bernstein, whom I had met while at summer camp and who had impressed me with his unclouded view of the world around him. I knocked at the door of his study in the temple a few blocks from campus. He welcomed me in his friendly, trained rabbi’s voice. I told him of my dilemma and asked what I should do.
“Do you agree with the Republicans?” he asked me.
“I’m not sure,” I said honestly. “I think I have only begun to study what the Republicans stand for.”
“Well, if I were you, I’d think seriously about giving your name and your voice to something you don’t know about.” He leaned across the desk, his hands lightly clasped before him. “Think of your own heritage of integrity, Susan. You’ll be asked a thousand times to give that name of yours to things. Wait until you are informed and really convinced. Integrity is our most important stock-in-trade.”
I left his study knowing he was right, went to the phone and told the political leader “no.” My decision had nothing to do with his being a Republican. I would have given the same answer to a Democrat.
For the first time, I felt Aunt Susan might have approved
(TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE: HERE IS ANOTHER EXCERPT, PAGES 170-171 FROM THE GHOST IN MY LIFE BY SUSAN B. ANTHONY.)
Facing the end of my six-year marriage, the end of my radio career, I tasted real insecurity. But just as I was dipping into a panic, another radio station put me back on the air with much fanfare, claiming in a Variety advertisement that the Susan B. Anthony show was “not too controversial for us!” Rejoicing at the chance to broadcast again, I was happy to be sober, clear-voiced and clear-eyed as I interviewed my five-day-a-week stream of “controversial” guests in what was hailed as a very lively show. Six weeks later I was sitting at the typewriter at home when there was a knock at the door. A registered special delivery letter was handed to me by a postman. The letter was brief. It was from the station. It ordered my show off the air by the end of the week.
No explanation was given. Twice in three months my livelihood had been abruptly shut off. What was behind it? To whom could I appeal? What could I do?
Only gradually I realized that while I had groped in the haze of alcoholism, the world had moved from the alliances of World War II into the new battle lines of the cold war. No longer were the Fascists and Nazis the enemy; in 1946 the new enemy was the Soviet Union.
President Roosevelt had been in his grave less than two weeks, in April 1945, when the preliminary shots of this new war were fired at the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations Organization. With one voice the American press seemed to turn overnight against Russia. Now in December 1946 the attack on liberals and leftists was gaining momentum through official and unofficial agencies. I myself had interviewed some of the victims of these attacks on my radio programs. Now I was one of the growing number of liberal commentators being “purged” from the air, and blacklisted for future programs in New York.
It took me two years to get back on the air. And then it was not in New York and certainly not on controversial issues. I returned to radio in Boston, pioneering with a program on alcoholism, and later one on psychogenic illness. The shows reflected a general retreat forced by the purge of political commentary shows. But in my case they also reflected a transformation in my personal focus. By 1950 I had learned from my recovered alcoholic friends that my job was to change myself first, before trying to change the world. Further, I could change myself best by helping others on a person-to-person basis. “Each one reach one,” was the way to get sober, and to stay sober.
No explanation was given. Twice in three months my livelihood had been abruptly shut off. What was behind it? To whom could I appeal? What could I do?
Only gradually I realized that while I had groped in the haze of alcoholism, the world had moved from the alliances of World War II into the new battle lines of the cold war. No longer were the Fascists and Nazis the enemy; in 1946 the new enemy was the Soviet Union.
President Roosevelt had been in his grave less than two weeks, in April 1945, when the preliminary shots of this new war were fired at the San Francisco meeting of the United Nations Organization. With one voice the American press seemed to turn overnight against Russia. Now in December 1946 the attack on liberals and leftists was gaining momentum through official and unofficial agencies. I myself had interviewed some of the victims of these attacks on my radio programs. Now I was one of the growing number of liberal commentators being “purged” from the air, and blacklisted for future programs in New York.
It took me two years to get back on the air. And then it was not in New York and certainly not on controversial issues. I returned to radio in Boston, pioneering with a program on alcoholism, and later one on psychogenic illness. The shows reflected a general retreat forced by the purge of political commentary shows. But in my case they also reflected a transformation in my personal focus. By 1950 I had learned from my recovered alcoholic friends that my job was to change myself first, before trying to change the world. Further, I could change myself best by helping others on a person-to-person basis. “Each one reach one,” was the way to get sober, and to stay sober.
[2021 UPDATE: ALTHOUGH MY ADDRESS AND THE INSTRUCTION TO RETURN THE CASSETTE COPY I'D RECORDED OF THE DOCUMENTARY "GHOSTS, MEDIUMS, PSYCHICS: PUT TO THE TEST" WAS INDICATED ON THE VHS CASSETTE, IT WAS NEVER RETURNED TO ME FROM GUY CIMBALO AND NOTHING RESULTED FROM THE INTERVIEW AS FAR AS I KNOW. I'D RECORDED ANOTHER VHS CASSETTE AT MIKE'S HOUSE AND IT TOO WAS NEVER RETURNED TO ME SO I COULDN'T UPLOAD THE FOOTAGE TO YOUTUBE, ETC.]
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