HELEN NEARING

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MEN: Just one of the many books you've both written at the farm. You both have made considerable use of your time.

HN: We've written five or six books together, and I've written five or six by myself, but I know which one most people refer to. They mean Living the Good Life, which has sold a couple hundred thousand copies. Since nearly all of Scott's political books were hard-pressed for a publisher, we often published them ourselves. Even later in his life, Scott had many detractors among the academic and publishing community. So whatever we got in from the sale of Living the Good Life went to publish the books no publisher would take. It didn't change our way of life at all. Again, we weren't in it to become rich.

MEN: Scott was accused of sedition after speaking out against the First World War.

HN: Yes, Scott considered the war to be basically a commercial exercise, and insisted upon speaking publicly about it. This was after he was fired from his job at the University of Pennsylvania for speaking out against the use of child labor in industry. So he was no favorite of the establishment and had developed a reputation as an troublemaker. He was given a hearing before a "blue ribbon" panel in Boston and they eventually acquitted him of the sedition charge. They admitted that Scott was an "idealist," but an honorable man. The decision was appealed several times, ultimately to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court upheld the decision that he was innocent. But his public life as a writer and professor was over.

MEN: Do you recall him feeling a sense of animosity toward the "establishment" after first moving to Vermont?

HN: He had no bitterness inside himself at all. I think that's why he lived so long. He was at home with himself. He could sleep nights with his conscience. He had done what he could, and apparently there was no place for it in that present period of society, so he went on to his research work. We continued to subscribe to political causes and such. We would go to meetings, and if he was asked, he would address meetings. But he didn't make that a primary concern at all. No, he had retired.

He was really, utterly rejected by the academic community when I first met him. And I don't know what he would have done if I hadn't come along. It was a happy circumstance for us both. He had no regrets at all because we were completely compatible and congenial and had nearly everything in common except music, which was amusing for me because I was supremely interested in music. He didn't really like music and couldn't carry a tune. It was noise to him. But then much of the reason for building a new home in Vermont and then Maine was to rid ourselves of modern noise.

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