N MEMORIAM
by Marjorie Spock
(from Biodynamics no. 71, Summer 1964)
Seldom has the death of a public figure aroused as sharp a sense of loss and grief as that of Rachel Carson. People of intelligent goodwill the world over were appalled to learn on April 14th that this champion of scientific sanity had succumbed to cancer.
Here was a woman who risked everything to tell the truth about pesticides, that all mankind and the whole of nature might be benefited. A slight, far-from-robust, very timid person, she nevertheless shied away from none of the consequences of her courageous decision to expose the facts. While the thoughtful and fair-minded were immensely grateful for her careful documenting of every phase of the harm being done by indiscriminate spraying, those to whom pesticides were a source of income attacked her savagely. It was an education in perfidy to read their blasts. So this gentle writer, who desired nothing more than peace and privacy, came to stand, undaunted, at the center of a raging storm, an uproar that never abated from the moment when the New Yorker published a large part of Silent Spring in June 1962 to her recent death. Not only, however, did she quietly bear insults that ranged from scornful cries of “bird-lover!” through “emotionalist,” “pseudo-scientist,” “scare-monger” and “fact-twister” to “dollar-chaser” - she submitted to requests to address groups of the genuinely interested, gave testimony before two Congressional committees and took part in a CBS forum on Silent Spring when already gravely ill, and answered floods of inquiries received by mail. Hers was a dedication without bounds, a sacrifice that cost her more than dearly. One cannot sufficiently admire the selflessness, the spiritual strength that made this possible at a time when she knew that she was dying, while having everything to live for.
Rachel Carson combined in rare perfection the capacity of the true poet for lucidity and beauty of expression and the scientist’s sobriety. To go even an inch beyond the proven facts was unthinkable to her.
Though she was charged, by those with an axe to grind, with grossly overstating her case, with allowing herself to be emotionally swayed in her presentation, the very opposite was true: she choked down the outrage she felt at callous destruction of countless innocent creatures of the fields and forests to emphasize how stupid and shortsighted it was to destroy them. To those unbiased ones who knew the facts as she did, she seemed in her scientific caution actually to understate the case, to withhold—for the sake of credibility—much of the true horror of the spraying picture. Future developments will show that Silent Spring is a model of conservatism. Yet despite the ugliness inherent in her theme, she made many a passage unforgettable for its exquisite beauty, for the poetic justice which it did the facts. And this book was and remains an education in wholeness of approach to nature.
Had she lived, it is entirely conceivable that Rachel Carson, having made her first anti-pesticide point conservatively for those who cared to listen with an open mind, would have gone on to write a further book dealing with wise soil management as the only adequate control of insects. For she was well aware that the solution lay here. But such a task, entailing years of research to do the job in a way commensurate with her exacting standards, lay in a future which her all-too-short life-span could not compass. Her untimely death passes on this challenge, to be carried by others who can scarcely be expected to duplicate her talents.
We can indeed be inspired by Rachel Carson’s sacrifices, heartened by her courage, made wise by her good judgment to undertake this task in the same selfless spirit with which she served so notably both man and nature. May the energy, intelligence, and discretion with which we shoulder it together become a living memorial, a lasting evidence of our gratitude to this great-souled crusader who deserves so richly of each one of us!