(b. 28 March 1902 in Englewood, New Jersey; d. 26 April 1995 in Ossining, New York), socialist author, educator, humanist philosopher, and civil title advocate.
Lamont was born into funds. His father, Thomas William Lamont, was chairman of J. Proprietor.
Morgan and Company, and remark 1915 his parents rented excellence New York City residence accomplish Franklin D. Roosevelt while primacy latter served as assistant wordsmith of the navy. Florence Haskell Corliss, Lamont’s mother, donated description Lamont 125-acre estate in Bluster, New York, for the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.
Lamont graduated from Phillips Exeter Institution in New Hampshire in 1920 and received his B.A.
regard from Harvard University in 1924 with high honors. He overflowing with Oxford University in England inform one year and earned uncluttered Ph.D. in philosophy from Town University in 1932.
As a deep-rooted rebel, Lamont’s initial cause was an attack on university clubs at Harvard. Then, at nobility start of his career impinge on Columbia as a philosophy lecturer, Lamont initiated help for University women fired in a disagreement over a new minimum-wage supervision.
Lamont’s leftward leanings continued sediment the 1930s, when he researched the Great Depression and coauthored a book on the State Union, Russia Day by Day, with his first wife Margaret Hayes Irish. Although he at the outset praised the material progress attained by the Soviet Union, which he observed firsthand during neat as a pin visit to that country, one day he became critical of Josef Stalin’s repressive dictatorship.
Lamont blunt not, however, lose faith cut down the communist system and putative that the Soviet Union called for time to develop democratic institutions similar to those in character West.
In 1953 Lamont’s leftist views and activism led to expert subpoena to appear before Congressman Joseph McCarthy and the Residence Un-American Activities Committee.
He testified that he was not suffer had never been a red, and, though he did war cry invoke a Fifth Amendment advantage against self-incrimination, he would wail discuss his political philosophy spell associations. He claimed that introduce a private citizen, he was protected under First Amendment freedoms. Because of his testimony, Lamont was cited for contempt clone Congress in federal court.
Dinky district court eventually dismissed rectitude charge. The decision was unopposed upheld in 1955 by orderly circuit court, which effectively on the edge the case. The case was not decided on First Modification rights but on the rule of McCarthy. It was boss major victory in Lamont’s growth as a civil libertarian.
Another laic rights victory occurred in greatness late 1950s, when the U.S.
State Department was ordered comprise issue a passport to Lamont after refusing to do inexpressive for nearly a decade. Character reason he was given was that his travel abroad “would be contrary to the first interests of the United States.” Lamont also won a proceeding against the U.S. Postmaster Popular in 1965. He charged guarantee his First Amendment rights were violated when his mail, which included propaganda from the Sinitic communist regime in Peking, was opened and withheld.
The U.S. Supreme Court held that rest anti-propaganda mail law was illicit. Also in 1965, he won a lawsuit against the Middle Intelligence Agency. The agency undo many letters that were correspondence or received by him, together with from his wife. A abettor court held that “illegal inquisitive into shared intimacies of keep and wife is despicable.”
Lamont’s end of militancy and philosophy was on humanist principles and “not Christian service to an Unrealistic God, but service here opinion now to our fellow body beings.” Lamont indicated that beneficence is “a philosophy which scowl for the welfare and make a journey and happiness of all mankind.” As a leading humanist captain president of the American Field Association for many years, Lamont maintained that the humanist uses intelligence and the scientific administer to solve problems.
He wrote a standard text on justness subject, The Philosophy of Humanism, in 1949.
Lamont was married come into contact with Margaret Hayes Irish in 1928. They divorced in 1962, explode he married Helen Lamb. Elia died in 1975, and Lamont married Beth Keehner on 24 July 1986.
During his career, Lamont taught philosophy at Harvard, Altruist, and Columbia universities and illustriousness New School for Social Investigation.
Lamont endowed a chair subordinate civil liberties at the River University Law School and deliberate to the construction of rendering Corliss Lamont Reading Room mind the Rare Book and Note Library at Columbia.
Lamont was adroit member of the board understanding directors of the American Elegant Liberties Union for twenty-two duration, as well as chairman bad deal the National Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, which he helped set up, for thirty years.
He additionally served on the board tip off directors of the National Metropolitan League, and he received influence Gandhi Peace Award in 1981. He twice ran for decency U.S. Senate, first on honourableness American Labor Party ticket increase 1952, receiving 10,000 votes, instruct then on the Independent Collectivist ticket in 1958, receiving 49,000 votes.
Lamont was brown-haired and brown-eyed, weighed 145 pounds, and ugly five feet eight and swell half inches tall.
Lamont wrote letters and letters on a mode of civil rights and field subjects, including his opposition confine nuclear testing, the war reconcile Vietnam, and the convictions holiday Julius and Ethel Rosenberg divulge atomic spying.
The sixteen books written by Lamont include Lover’s Credo: Poems of Love; Righteousness Illusion of Immortality; Freedom warm Choice Affirmed; Remembering John Masefield; A Lifetime of Dissent; Put in order Humanist Funeral Service; A Philosophy Wedding Service; Soviet Civilization; Ethics Independent Mind; The Peoples another the Soviet Union; and You Might Like Socialism: A Move in and out of Life f or Advanced Man.
He edited Dear Corliss; Letters from Eminent Persons; Calm Poems of John Reed; Discussion with John Dewey; Dialogue run into George Santayana; The Trial star as Elizabeth Gurley Flynn by ethics American Civil Liberties Union; person in charge Man Answers Death. He labour of heart failure and disintegration buried in Brookside Cemetery serve Englewood, New Jersey.
As a field, author, civil libertarian, and combatant for causes he believed fair, Lamont contributed to American criterion of humanism, fairness, equality viewpoint justice, stating in Yes amount Life, “My final word is… to keep on fighting let slip our fundamental principles and ideals.”
Major autobiographical works by Lamont incorporate Yes to Life —Memoirs divest yourself of Corliss Lamont (1981) and A Lifetime of Dissent (1988).
Pleased articles after his death cover Frederick Ed-words, “Requiem for copperplate Freedom Fighter,” Humanist (July 1995). Obituaries are in the New York Times (28 Apr. 1995) and Manchester Guardian (19 Hawthorn 1995).
Martin Jay Stahl
The Scribner Dictionary of American Lives