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Fantasy Commentator, v. 1, issue 11, Summer 1946
Page 297
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 297 to refuse his offer---"demand" would probably be a better term---what was to happen! The answer was not long in coming. All members of the ILSF who were also members of the ISA resigned en masse. These were Sykora, Kyle, Wollheim, Michel, and Pohl. The loss of five prominent members of such a club as the ILSF, already lethargic, proved ultimately fatal. Two days later a startling aftermath occured. These five ex-members held a meeting (of which other ILSF followers were not informed) at which a new ILSF chapter constitution was adopted. (Five individuals not making up a majority of ILSF chapter membership, the adopted constitution was obviously illegal.) Backed up by this spurious constitution, a majority of the five voted to have Pohl---one of their number---refund them the dues they had paid to the organization's treasury, excepting monies remitted in each case for copies of the official organ, Arcturus. But Pohl balked. Despite hot words, he refused to carry this travesty on legality to such lengths without the express consent of Kirshenblit (director of the club), who was of course not present. Later, indeed, he turned over the ILSF treasury to Kirshenblit intact, and even went so far as to announce his intention of retaining membership. Kirshenblit, meanwhile, had viewed the mass resignation with anything but calm silence, having tagging the deserters as "cowardly." Wollheim promptly lashed back with a vitriolic answer to this and other epithets, requesting ballots for ISA members who had "resigned". Kirshenblit left it to the membership to decide whether or not the oral resignations constituted legal departures, and the group decided that they did. He further answered Wollheim's missive, clarifying some of this previous epithets but not retracting any, saying that his use of the word "cowardly" referred mainly to Wollheim's and Sykora's disrupting the New York SFL meeting at which Hornig presided. (This, we might note, was the first opposition Wollheim had yet encountered on his record, and it presaged the later general use of this record of controversies by the man's enemies---sometimes to devastating effect.) Kirshenblit now claimed the chapter purged of its unwelcome adherents, and voiced the opinion that the action would produce a salutary effect. But when the dust had cleared he found himself heading an anemic organization of six members. They managed to issue two more inferior numbers of Arcturus, the last being dated January 1937, before complete collapse. One of the last notes on the ILSF was carried in "Sun Spots" in the November, 1936 International Observer: ...The ILSF, which was carried on almost solely by its Brooklyn chapter, is now on the verge of dissolution. If information gathered by our correspondent is correct, the members plan one more issue of their organ, Arcturus, after which it will be dropped. The Brooklyn League will become merely a bunch of fellows engaged in science-experimenting (otherwise known as kidding around---in this writer's opinion). This brief battle had two important effects. Firstly, their victory over the ILSF was to prove pyrrhic to ISA members; in wantonly destroying what was essentially a friendly organization when its absorption failed the ISA inadvertently had sown the seeds of its own destruction. Secondly, Wolheim's parenthetical remark anent science-hobbyists that has been quoted above was---though neither man was probably conscious of it---the first step that led from coolness to open, bitter enmity between him and Sykora. The effect of such sarcastic scoffing on Sykora can be well imagined; to him, who at that time held an unshakable belief in the worth and efficacy of science as a hobby, Wollheim's statement amounted to indirect sabotage of the International Scientific Association's very foundations. The trust he had reposed in the man now smacked of foolhardiness. So, from that time forward, Sykora took Wollheim
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FANTASY COMMENTATOR 297 to refuse his offer---"demand" would probably be a better term---what was to happen! The answer was not long in coming. All members of the ILSF who were also members of the ISA resigned en masse. These were Sykora, Kyle, Wollheim, Michel, and Pohl. The loss of five prominent members of such a club as the ILSF, already lethargic, proved ultimately fatal. Two days later a startling aftermath occured. These five ex-members held a meeting (of which other ILSF followers were not informed) at which a new ILSF chapter constitution was adopted. (Five individuals not making up a majority of ILSF chapter membership, the adopted constitution was obviously illegal.) Backed up by this spurious constitution, a majority of the five voted to have Pohl---one of their number---refund them the dues they had paid to the organization's treasury, excepting monies remitted in each case for copies of the official organ, Arcturus. But Pohl balked. Despite hot words, he refused to carry this travesty on legality to such lengths without the express consent of Kirshenblit (director of the club), who was of course not present. Later, indeed, he turned over the ILSF treasury to Kirshenblit intact, and even went so far as to announce his intention of retaining membership. Kirshenblit, meanwhile, had viewed the mass resignation with anything but calm silence, having tagging the deserters as "cowardly." Wollheim promptly lashed back with a vitriolic answer to this and other epithets, requesting ballots for ISA members who had "resigned". Kirshenblit left it to the membership to decide whether or not the oral resignations constituted legal departures, and the group decided that they did. He further answered Wollheim's missive, clarifying some of this previous epithets but not retracting any, saying that his use of the word "cowardly" referred mainly to Wollheim's and Sykora's disrupting the New York SFL meeting at which Hornig presided. (This, we might note, was the first opposition Wollheim had yet encountered on his record, and it presaged the later general use of this record of controversies by the man's enemies---sometimes to devastating effect.) Kirshenblit now claimed the chapter purged of its unwelcome adherents, and voiced the opinion that the action would produce a salutary effect. But when the dust had cleared he found himself heading an anemic organization of six members. They managed to issue two more inferior numbers of Arcturus, the last being dated January 1937, before complete collapse. One of the last notes on the ILSF was carried in "Sun Spots" in the November, 1936 International Observer: ...The ILSF, which was carried on almost solely by its Brooklyn chapter, is now on the verge of dissolution. If information gathered by our correspondent is correct, the members plan one more issue of their organ, Arcturus, after which it will be dropped. The Brooklyn League will become merely a bunch of fellows engaged in science-experimenting (otherwise known as kidding around---in this writer's opinion). This brief battle had two important effects. Firstly, their victory over the ILSF was to prove pyrrhic to ISA members; in wantonly destroying what was essentially a friendly organization when its absorption failed the ISA inadvertently had sown the seeds of its own destruction. Secondly, Wolheim's parenthetical remark anent science-hobbyists that has been quoted above was---though neither man was probably conscious of it---the first step that led from coolness to open, bitter enmity between him and Sykora. The effect of such sarcastic scoffing on Sykora can be well imagined; to him, who at that time held an unshakable belief in the worth and efficacy of science as a hobby, Wollheim's statement amounted to indirect sabotage of the International Scientific Association's very foundations. The trust he had reposed in the man now smacked of foolhardiness. So, from that time forward, Sykora took Wollheim
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