"California Senator" S. I. Hayakawa Hand Written Letter on a 4X6 Card

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"California Senator" S. I. Hayakawa Hand Written Letter on a 4X6 Card. Included is a second signature card with the families crest stamped.
ES-6676
Samuel Ichiye Hayakawa
(
Japanese
:
早川
一衛
, July 18, 1906 – February 27, 1992) was a Canadian-born American academic and politician of Japanese ancestry. A professor of
English
, he served as president of
San Francisco State University
and then as
U.S. Senator
from
California
from 1977 to 1983. Born in
Vancouver
,
British Columbia
, Hayakawa was educated in the public schools of
Calgary
,
Alberta
, and
Winnipeg
,
Manitoba
, and graduated from the
University of Manitoba
in 1927. He received his
M.A.
in English from
McGill University
in 1928 and his
Ph.D.
in the discipline from the
University of Wisconsin–Madison
in 1935. Professionally, Hayakawa was a
linguist
, psychologist,
semanticist
, teacher, and writer.
He served as an instructor at the
University of Wisconsin
from 1936 to 1939 and at the Armour Institute of Technology (
Illinois Institute of Technology
as of 1940) from 1939 to 1948.
[
His first book on semantics,
Language in Thought and Action
, expanded its forerunner (and
Book-of-the-Month Club
selection)
Language in Action
, written from 1938–1941. With five editions from 1949–1991,
Language in Thought and Action
helped to popularize
Alfred Korzybski
's
general semantics
and semantics in general, while semantics or theory of meaning was overwhelmed by
mysticism
,
propagandism
and even
scientism
.
[
Hayakawa lectured at the
University of Chicago
from 1950 to 1955. He presented a talk at the 1954 Conference of Activity Vector Analysts
[4]
at
Lake George
,
New York
, in which he discussed a theory of personality from the semantic point of view. It was later published as
The Semantic Barrier
. The definitive lecture discussed the
Darwinism
of the "survival of self" as contrasted with the "survival of
self-concept
." His ideas on general semantics influenced
A. E. van Vogt
's Null-A novels,
The World of Null-A
and
The Pawns of Null-A
. Van Vogt in
The World of Null-A
(i.e., non-Aristotelian) makes Hayakawa a character, introducing him as: "Professor Hayakawa is today's Mr. Null-A himself, the elected head of the International Society for General Semantics."
Hayakawa was an English professor at
San Francisco State College
(now San Francisco State University) from 1955 to 1968. In the early 1960s, he helped organize the
Anti Digit Dialing League
, a San Francisco group that opposed the introduction of all-digit
telephone exchange names
. Among the students he trained were commune leader
Stephen Gaskin
and author
Gerald Haslam
. He was named acting president of San Francisco State College on November 26, 1968 during a student strike, when
Ronald Reagan
was
governor of California
and
Joseph Alioto
was
mayor of San Francisco
.
[6]
On July 9, 1969, the
California State Colleges
Board of Trustees appointed Hayakawa the ninth president of San Francisco State. Hayakawa retired on July 10, 1973.
Hayakawa wrote a column for the
Register and Tribune Syndicate
from 1970 to 1976. In 1973, Hayakawa changed his political affiliation from the
Democratic Party
to the
Republican Party
and became president emeritus at what became San Francisco State University. From November 1968–March 1969, there was a
student strike
at San Francisco State College in order to establish an
ethnic studies
program. It was a major news event at the time and chapter in the radical history of the
United States
and the Bay Area. The strike was led by the
Third World Liberation Front
supported by
Students for a Democratic Society
, the
Black Panthers
and the countercultural community.
[
The students presented fifteen "non-negotiable demands," including a
Black Studies
department chaired by sociologist
Nathan Hare
independent of the university administration, open admission for all black students to "put an end to racism," and the unconditional, immediate end to the
War in Vietnam
and the university's involvement. It was threatened that if these demands were not immediately and completely satisfied the entire campus was to be forcibly shut down Hayakawa became popular with conservative voters during this period after he pulled out the wires from the loudspeakers on a protesters' van at an outdoor rally. Hayakawa relented on December 6, 1968, and announced the creation of a Black Studies program at the University.
Hayakawa won an unexpected victory in the 1976 Republican Senate primary over three better-known career politicians: former HEW Secretary
Robert Finch
, long-time U.S. Representative
Alphonzo Bell
and former California Lieutenant Governor
John L. Harmer
. Much like
Jimmy Carter
, Hayakawa touted himself as a political outsider.
On the Democratic side, incumbent Senator
John Tunney
faced a surprisingly strong challenge from another political outsider,
Tom Hayden
. Hayden's extremely liberal candidacy forced Tunney to run more to the left in the primary, which hurt him in the general election. Nevertheless, Tunney was favored
[
t
o easily win re-election. Comfortably ahead in the polls, Tunney did not aggressively campaign until the final weeks before the election. But Hayakawa's position as a political outsider was popular in the wake of the
Watergate scandal
. In addition, Tunney had a high absenteeism rate while serving in the Senate and missed numerous votes. Hayakawa exploited this with a television ad that showed an empty chair in the U.S. Senate chamber. Hayakawa gradually closed the gap with Tunney, and
ultimately defeated him by just over three percentage points
.
[
During his Senate campaign, Hayakawa spoke about the proposal to transfer possession of the
Panama Canal
and
Canal Zone
from the United States to
Panama
. He said, "We should keep the Panama Canal. After all, we stole it fair and square." However, in 1978 he helped win Senate approval of the
Torrijos–Carter Treaties
, which transferred control of the zone and canal to Panama.
[16]
He also supported a bill that led to the creation of the
Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians
, which examined the causes and effects of the
incarceration of Japanese Americans
during
World War II
. During his time in the Senate, Hayakawa was one of three
Japanese Americans
in the chamber, the other two being
Daniel Inouye
and
Spark Matsunaga
, both of
Hawaii
.
[
Hayakawa planned to run for re-election in 1982 but trailed other Republican candidates badly in early polls and was short on money. He dropped out of the race early in the year and was ultimately succeeded by Republican
San Diego
Mayor
Pete Wilson
. To date, he is the only Japanese American Republican to have served in the U.S. Senate. Hayakawa founded the political lobbying organization
U.S. English
, which is dedicated to making
English
the
official language
of the United States. Despite his support for creating the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, Hayakawa, who lived in
Chicago
as a Canadian citizen during World War II and thus was not subject to confinement,
[2]
argued that the
internment of Japanese Americans
was beneficial and that Japanese Americans should not be paid for "fulfilling their obligations" to submit to
Executive Order 9066