A Man Who Made a Difference: The Life of David H. Scull (review)

58Quaker History remarks, especially in the areas of religious and political history. For instance, it is mentioned in places that the work under consideration is in part a defense against the charge of Socinianism, but Socinianism is nowhere identified, and no comments are made about the reasons for or the validity of the charge. Possibly more analytical and less simply descriptive remarks would have stretched inappropriately the scope of this bibliographical volume. In any case, the authors provide references to specific sections of scholarly studies of Penn's works for readers who want to learn more. As Bronner has written, much of what Penn wrote "has been forgotten because it was hurriedly written, without proper reflection and review, it was frequently repetitious, and, as one author said, it was often 'turgid and obscure'" (p.26). Nevertheless, knowledge of Penn's writings adds greatly to our understanding of one of the most important figures in Quaker, English, and American history. Students of Penn's life and thought have in this publication an extraordinary and definitive bibliograpjical guide to his thought. Scholars in several fields will be in debt to Edwin Bronner and David Fraser as long as historical knowledge is pursued. Hamilton CollegeMelvin B. Endy Jr. A Man Who Made a Difference: The Life ofDavidH. Scull. Edited with and a Biographical Essay by Charles E. Fager. McLean, Va.: Langley Hill Friends Meeting, 1985. 213 pp. $12.95. David H. Scull (1914-1983) "made a difference" by being an exceptionally interesting and interested and energetic person who threw himself joyously, and with great effectiveness, into an astonishing range of endeavors. Of these the ones that stand out to us today are his public espousal (in Virginia in the 1940s) of racially integrated restaurants, his refusal (upheld ultimately by the U.S. Supreme Court) to answer the questions of a Virginia legislative committee which was inquiring about his beliefs regarding such integration, and his establishment of a novel and successful international development program ("Partnership and Productivity") which continues today. He was also always a devoted and loving son, husband and father. As Charles Fager is careful to point out in the biographical essay that comprises the first half of this slender, paper-bound volume, David Scull neither sought nor enjoyed the national attention that was attracted by his refusal to answer the legislative committee's questions. He refused to do so because he felt that he had to. His real interests which appeared at least as early as his years at Swarthmore College (well documented by the letters he wrote almost daily to his parents) lay in fashioning organizations that could accomplish socially useful goals. Thus, while he was for a time impressed by the ideas of Norman Thomas (and by those of another perennial Socialist candidate for public office , Swarthmore's beloved Professor "Ducky" Holmes) David was far more caught up during college in the food cooperative movement that was then just beginning. It is a strength of the biographical essay that it shows so clearly the maturation of David Scull's views toward ideology and the business of getting things done. The former was something of which he became increasingly suspicious; the latter was what always energized him. Indeed, it was his freedom from rigid adherence either to the principles of free enterprise or of collectivism that likely made possible the success of his Partnership for Productivity. Book Reviews59 Charles Fager has chosen, properly, not to write more about Partnership for Productivity than is necessary to explain why and how David got it started, noting simply that from its operation with a single staff member in 1970 it has become an "internationally respected, five-million-dollar operation involving over three hundred staff people working in projects in fifteen countries from the Philippines to the Caribbean." Fager also rightly calls it "a high point of constructive Quaker activism in David's generation." Viewed from the perspective the biographical essay provides, Partnership for Productivity seems not only the crowning achievement, but even almost an inevitability, in this gifted man's life. In his last years David Scull took more time to write. His writings, in fact, make up the second half of this...