Third Month, 1989

EMBARRASSMENI'OF'mE lOfl'H: U.S. Representativefunald E. "Buz"1Alkens of ario, indicted lastroonthfor allegedly having sex with a minor. Heis listed as a ~er in the Almanac of Anerican .Politics. Askedwhat kind of ~aker Lukenswas, hispress aide said, "Just I)Iaker in gmeral." Ch, really?

ISSN #0739-5418

:,,'A Friendly LetterIssue Number Ninety-Five

DearFriend,

I never thought there wouldbe a goodt«IDi tosay arout the protests against the film 'I1le LastTemptatioo of C1Jrist(see Afl.i89), but let Is givecredit where it is due: '!be noisy picket lines,boycotts and outraged rhetoric seemdownrightIOOder-ate now,canpared to the death sentence for blas-phemypronollllcedby the Ayatollah Khaneiniwhichsent author SalmanRushdieWldergrOlmdlast roonth.

RushdieIs offending book, 'I1le satanic Verses,does not, to myknowledge,mention~ers. Evenso, Friends in particular should feel a cold chillat the spectacle whichis unfolding around it.'!bat Is because~ers knowsanething about blas-phemyprosecutions and death sentences, if werecallour history: JamesNayler had his tongue boredthrough and the letter B brandedon his forehead forit in London'ln1656, and barely escapedwith hislife. Four Friends in Bostonwerehungas "blas-pheuousheretics." Manyothers were whipped,jail-ed, fined or banished on similar charges.

Indeed, the Society of Friends was forged outof a sustained and bloody struggle to create socialspace for "blasphemy,"and to end the powerof gov-ernmentto enforce an established religious opinionthrough official violence. '!bat today's governmentin l.ondonis protecting Rushdieis a fact for which~er martyrs deserve no little credit.

'!bus the Rushdieaffair has been muchon mymindin the past weeks. But it also involves con-siderations oore personal than a regard for ~erhistory. Yousee, only a few days before the Aya-tollah pronouncedhis verdict, I joined the AmericanBooksellers Association. Myplan was to announceinthis issue a newservice, 'I12eFriendly Bookshelf,whichI hopewill begin to build into a full-fledgedmailorder bookservice specializing in ~akerism,Peace, justice, humanrights and classical religion.

I wasdrawnto do this because, well, I likebooks. I alwayshave. Booksare the culturalequivalent of r.w., the visible seeds of our in-tellect, imagination and spirit; books are excit-ing, and fun. So I expected to enjoy this fled-gling venture. Wy muchfarther downon the listof the attractions of bookselling was the notionof booksas occasions for witness. Of course thathad once been the case, and censorship battlesstill crop up; but in general bookselling is nolonger regarded as a very hazardous pursuit.

HeM soon weforget. Withmajor bookstorechains running for cover, smaller bookstores re-porting threats, and a major author in hiding,suddenlymyformal entry into the business took ona wholedifferent aspect. 'I12esatanic Verses isnot a title whichwouldhave occurred to metostock a roonthago; whenI finally get to read it,I maynot even like it. But I have ordered asizeable shipnent, and hereby offer it to you asthe debut selection of 'I12eFriendly Bookshelf.(Details are on the enclosed flyer.)

I think JamesNayler wouldWlderstand. I hopeyou do too.

PS. As the obligation of a Friend and Christianis to love our enemieseven while defying them, Iamalso seeking out statements by Muslimsexplain-ing their objections to the book, in pursuit ofunderstanding and reconciliation. A samplingofthese will be included with the bookat no charge.Contributions to this canpilation will be welcane.

Copyright (c) 1989 by C. Fager. Subscriptions S13.95/yr.; Canada $16; Elsewhere $20

If you or your meeting islooking for gcxxiFriendly invest-ment advice, I knc:Ma ~er news-letter editor whocan help. Helives in oorthern Virginia, wears abeard, and is a Kansas-bornvegeta-rian; his IOOIlthlypublicatioo beganin the early 19805and has saneth-ing of a gadfly reputatioo. Untilrecently, I would have thought suchspecificatioos could have led youooly to Ilrfdoor. But in fact thereare b«> such bearded Kansanvegeta-rian ~er newsletter editors inVi.rgin:ia. Whichis a good thing,since what cne of them knowsaboutinvestments wouldn't finance a downpayIIe1t .00 the Brooklyn Bridge.

No, for lOOneymatters theeditor you want is Friend MarkHul-bert, whoprcxiuces the Hulbert Fin-ancial Digest (or HFD)fran a houseoot far away in Alexandria. Of theb«> newsletters, his is by far thebetter known, the IOOre-wi.delycir-culated and affluent, and the onewith a muchclearer track record ofmeasurable impact in the world.

FOLLOWING '!HE YELlJ)W BRICK ROAD

Nodoubt these differenceshave to do with HFDIs distinctivemissioo, which rather than keepIDJan eye 00 ~ers, tracks othernewsletters, specifically invest-ment newsletters, about 100 ofthem. ('!hey also reflect HFD's$135 annual subscription price andits readership of several thousand.To try it, a 5-issue trial is$37.50 from HFD,Dept. A, 316CcmnerceSt., Alexandria VA22314.)

In every issue, Hulberttakes the advice each of his targetletters gives regarding invest-ments, applies it to a hypotheticalportfolio according to actual mark-et IOOves,calculates just heMwiseor foolish the advice truly was,then prints the results in a de-tailed series of charts and graphs.

Many, perhaps nost editorsamongthe 100 probably donI t lookforward to seeing the Hulbert Fin-ancial Digest. 'That's because eversince it first appeared in Ninth

!t:lnth, 1980, it has regularlyrevealed that nost of these self-appointed Wall Street wizards aremuchlike the Great OZ-that is,humbugswhohave bamboozledreadersinto paying for the privilege ofbeing told heMto lose their nmey.

Howbad is it? Hulbert saysthat if you were to buy and hold arepresentative sample of stocks,reinvest your dividends and do n0-thing else, the record showsyouwoulddo better than eighty percentof the letters he surveys. Atfirst blush, this is pretty devas-tating news, especially if you hap-pen to be anoog the eighty percent.No1«lIlderone editor even sued Hul-bert a few years ago, charging himwith driving awaypotential sub-scribers. IXlubtless Hulbert didjust that, by detailing theeditor's lousy perfonnance, butsuch accurate reporting is hardlylibelous, and the suit was thrownout; c' est la guerre.

'IHE 00)1), 'IHE BAD AND 'IHE omms

Against such odds, you mightask, whydo people buy these let-ters at all? Hulbert points to atleast three reasoos, only one ofwhich is P.T. BarnlUll'Seatment onthe high birth rate of suckers.'!be second is that their perfor-manceis really no worse than thatof the Wall Street establishment ofpinstriped brokers whose 'IV ads ex-tol their wisdan and experience.Indeed, Hulbert says that one ofthe nost massive destructioos ofwealth ever was wreakedon thepost-World WarTwogeneration bythis sameinvestment establishment,whoincessantly pushed everyone tobuy savings bonds and keep cash inpassbook savings accounts. Whenretirement cameand these werecashed in, they discovered thatneither had kept up with inflation,and half or rooreof their purchas-ing powerwas gone forever.

'!be maverick investmentletters represents a kind of inves-tors I populism, an uprising againstWall Street Is regulars. Theeditors, characteristically, in-

elude advocates of just about everykind of rightwing antiestablishmen-tarian conspiracy theory.

But HFDIS reports on this IOOt-ley crew are by no meansall badnews. It turns out that a handfulof the letters actually have donepretty well over time, and Hulbertnames. He also hastens to add thatwhile a letter nowand then has aspectacular year, such phenanenalrises tend to be followed by equal-ly spectacular declines. "'!bere isno magic," he declares finnly. In-deed, the main lesson of his stu-dies appears to be that over time,a 15-20 percent annual gain isabout the best that one can expectto get, beating the "buy and hold"strategy by a few points. Henceone ought to iIlInedi.ately toss outadvertising that promises roore. Buthe points out that at canpoundin-terest, this seemingly IOOdestre-turn meansa doubling of your lOOl1eyin about five years, which beatsthose old savings bonds all hollow.

~'!HE MAN WITH THE OOLDEN LIST

'!bus if the losers fear HFD'5spotlight, for the winners it canbe like a key to the vault. 'l1JePrudent Speculator, for instance,had less than one hundred subscrib-ers whenHulbert picked it as thetop perfonner of 1983. '!be nextyear it gained over 2000 newsub-scribers, at over a hundred bucks apop, which isn't choppedliver.

That's real elout for a pub-lication that was started alnost asa lark. Hulbert is not sane ster-eotypical MBAspreadsheet nerd; hediscovered the investment newslet-ter industry by accident, in 1979whenhe attended an investor' s con-ference in NewOrleans. Hulbertwas there as a freelance writer,to help draft a speech for formerCalifornia governor Jerry Brown,whowas there campaigningforpresident. Hulbert was fascinatedby the sight of dozens of self-"ap- ~./pointed investment gurus,tnunpeting their varied and oftencontradictory advice, and elai.mi.nqto have brought riches to the

Norman Maller"If he is ever killedfor a folly, we mustbe killed for the

. same folly, and wemay need be, sincewe will then vow todo our best to openall literary meetingswith a reading ofthe critical pages of"The SatanicVerses."

Khomeini"InSistent onDeath Order'western Arrogance'Will Not Sway Him

.On Sale Here:Salman Rushdie's book

Incitement toMurder OEBeliefKhomeini spurns BlasPhe~yauthor's apology, And Fury

demands death ~~~~.~~.~~8

~~ . ~~ ~();...~~ V>G

~~ ~~~~~~ ~

Deh more than a book is at stake.

TIlE SATANIC VERSES

FREE PEOPLE WRITE BOOKS •

FREE PEOPLE PUBLISH BOOKS

FREE PEOPLE SELL BOOKS

FREE PEOPLE BUY BOOKS

FREE PEOPLE READ BOOKS

Threats frightenU.S. booksellers

Susan Sontag"We want to ex-press a little civicfortitude' in the faceof this threat. Wewant to show ourrefusal to be intimi-dated."

The author of the Satanic Verses book,which is against Islam. the Prophet andthe Koran, and all those involved in itspublication who were aware of its con-tent, are sentenced to death. I ask allMoslems to execute them wherever theyfind them.

Ayatollah Khomeini

t«m:: ~pment of 2fJe satanic Yer.;es lay be subject to delay or disruption; please be patient. If ship.eDt becolesi.possible, your order ,ill be refunded in full.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---USE THIS FORM TO ORDER--

Please send .e_copyliesi of 'l1JeSatanic Verses, at $19.95 plus $2.50 shipping. Mypay.ent is enclosed.

NAIIE------------ADDRESS _

______ . ZIP _

Send to: fhe Friendly Bookshelf, P.O. BOI 1]61, Falls Church Yl 22041.

A NEW TAPE:

A CONVERSATION WITH MARK HULBERT

The editor of the ~atio~ally-k~o~~

Ch~ck Fager abo~t the origi~s of his~e~sletter, the i~sights he hasgai~ed i~to i~~estme~t strategies a~drisks from ~i~e years of st~dy,reflects o~ s~ch timely topics associal i~~esti~g a~d the implicatio~sof Q~aker ~al~es for fi~a~cial mat-ters a~d the60 minu t::es_

fut::ure of capit::a.:I.i.sm_ Apprax:imat::e.:I.y

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

--PLEASE USE THIS FORM TO ORDER--

Please send me __ copy (ies) of the tape "A Conversation With Mark Hulbert,"at $7.95 postpaid. My payment is enclosed.NAME _

ADDRESS _

___________________ -ZIP _

Send To: The Friendly Bookshelf--Tapes,P.O. Box 1361, Falls Church VA 22041

readers of their newsletters. '!heycouldn't all be right, Hulbert fig-ured, but had anybodyever done area1i ty check 00 their trackrecords? It turned out nobodyhad,so Hulbert decided to give it atry. '!he Hulbert Financial Digestappeared in Ninth lblth 1980, andthe rest is history.

Part of the history of HFD,though, is its editor's Q,lakerism.'!his is evident for ooe thing inits orientation toward what couldbe called "the publishing of truth"in a field rife with exaggeratioo,flim-flam and chicanery. Hulberthas had sane distinguished Q,lakerforebears in this regard: Over acentury ago, for instance, FriendAugust flitcraft of Illi..oois setout to provide accurate and stan-dardized infonnatioo about in-surance canpanies, their rates andpolicies at a time whensuch datawas unavailable to consuners;fli taatt 's canpendium is still astandard reference in the field.Andin journalism, it was theQ,lakerDrewPearson whoall butinvented the investigative newspap-er columnin the 19305, and forthree decades was its IOOStre-doubtable practitiooer.

. While he carries it lightly,Hulbert is aware of this Q,lakercontext; he is no mere naninalFriend.. Besides attending FriendsMeeting of Washingtoo, Hulbert hasbeen active in ccmnittees of theFriends camri.ttee 00 Natiooal Leg-islation for IOOrethan a decade,and presently is clerk of FCNLISEKecutive camri.ttee.

In his various capacities atFaa., Hulbert has had occasion toapply his studies of the investmentworld at three levels: to thebroadest policy and legislativeconcerns, to issues involvingFaa. ,s ownfunds, and to their im-plications for individuals. Andthese reflections have led him indirections which challenge whatpasses for conventional wisdan,particularly aIOODgliberal Friends.

Take for exampleone of thenewbuzzwordsaIOODgnon-poor

Friends: "Social investment." Manyyearly meetings have long had re-strictions on heMtheir corporatefunds are to be invested, to avoidentanglements with producers of al-cohol, tobacco or munitions; butsocial investment implies going be-yood these negatives to seek outcanpanies which actively producegood things-for instance, recycledpaper, envirornnental cleanup equip-ment or ICMincane housing.

SUCh social investment hasbecare quite fashiooable of late;several newmutual funds havesprung up to canpete for liberalcooscience Daley. '!here are even acouple of socially oriented invest-ment newsletters now00 Hulbert'slist; and ooe of than, The CleanYield (P.O. Box1880, Greensb:>roBendVT 05842; $75 per year), wasam:n] the top performers in 1988.

Still, Hulbert looks at thesocial investment field withsanething of a jaundiced eye. Notthat the doubts the funds' in-tegrity; his questions are of alOOrefWld.aroontalorder, reflectinghis religious stance.

"'!he spiritual task of ourtime," Hulbert believes, "is to in-tegrate the various aspects of ourlives. " Applying this dictum tofinances, his first query is not anethical ooe abJut avoiding bad guysor helping the good; rather, it isIOOreinfornatiooal, but also lOOrebasic: Where is jIOUl" nx:ney, andwhat is it doing? Not manyof usreally know,and he says we should.

'!his concern for an in-tegrated life makeshim cautiousabout social investment funds: likeother funds, they buy and sellfrequently, and it is a rareshareholder whoreally knowswhat afund's holdings are. He notes thatone of the best-known funds, afavorite' of liberals, is run byperson whois an ardent fan ofRonald Reagan. Is this, Hulbertwonders, whothe liberal investorsreally want to support? A socialinvestment fund maybe the IOOSt

. practical optioo for saneone who

does not have time to do extensiveresearch 00 alternatives. But forthose whocan, Hulbert reccmnendslooking at your ownhemetown. "Ifyoo invest in sanething yoo kIx:M,"he suggests. "'!hen yoo'll kIx:Mwhereyour rocneyis, and there areoften reascnable investmentopportunities nearby." He follCMSthis advice too: his owncapital islOOStlyreinvested in his letter; hehas none in the stock market.

BackwhenHulbert finishedHaverford College and began grad-uate work in philosophy and ecoocm-ics at OXford,he was sanething ofa campusMarxist, lookID} ranantic-ally to the great Dialectic toSIlOOthoot all social differencesafter the revolutioo. His OXfordtutors madea hash of that withtheir repeated insistence that itbe supported with solid argumentsthat he didn't have. He cameawaylOOreinterested in seeing peace andjustice praooted by the floweringof manysmaller projects and lead-ings. Todayhe says he's stillenooghof a Marxist to worry aboutwhether ooe of old Karl's predic-tions maybe caning true.

sowm:; 'mE RIGHT KIND OF SEEDS

Hemeansthe ooe aboutcapitalism germinating the seeds ofits owndestructioo. Inparticular, he is troubled by thefact that IOOStliberal Friendstoday are academics, professiooalsor bureaucrats, with fewer and few-er risk-taking entrepreneurs anmgus. In this we are not so dif-ferent fran the rest of Americansociety, all of the Reaganite cele-bration of enterprise notwithstand-ing. But it makeshim wonder: howlong can our social order continuewithout such people providing itsdriving force? Andshould notFriends, whowere once knownasam:mgthe finest specimensof thebreed, be addressing this concern?

In this MarkHulbert speaksthe mindof the other Q.1akernewsletter editor in northern Vir-gina. AndI amalso haunted by hisfirst simple, tough question:"Friend, cbs thee /arM rtbere thy

DDJe.Y:is, and ffbat it :is dD~?"

S)I()()H «WlI 31d03:d mLi

SJOO8!flU 31d03:d mLi

SJOO8113S 31d03:d :rnIJ

SJOOUHSI181ldfld03:d mLi

S)fOOUllIlIA\ fld03:d nlIJ

SISlIlA lINV.lVS :mI~ooqs,3Wqsnll ~~

:aJaHales uo6££1 YA

, tf.)Zl'UQ 8ttllAOIVd

~sod.s.n.l.~"8

S!l8!lD S I .L:il:il8.LS 'l'lV/1 dODOaH:J.LV/18HXV!lb aH.L : aaISNI

pa~sanba~ u01~~a~~o~ ssa~ppvT~OGG VA 'SpBOJSSOJJ SAdT1BH

T9fT xOH 'O'dd8~~87 nzpu8tdd If 'Jd~Bd ~~nqJ :wOJd

In 1808, aetioo 00 membership applicatioos inWestp:rt Meeting in Massachusetts involved a b«:rstep process. Accordingly, in 'Ihird lblth, theelders first turned to the wanen's meeting, andasked them for CCIlcurrence with their reccmnendatiooto accept ale Paul Cuffe. '!he wanenI s meeting didagree; rot then, unexpectedly I the menIs meeting didoot, and the matter was cootinued for another IOOIlth.

It is oot clear fran the record just whatreasoos were given for the Westport men's hesita-tioos. Like many leading Friends in that part ofNewlli]laOO, Cuffe was a prosperous shipowner andsea captain, wOOhad sailed far aOOwide in pursuitof whales and ccmnerce. 'I1lere was every reasoo toSuppJSe that he epitanized what were called the"mioor virtues" of lalesty, truthfulness, thrift anddiligence, 00 which so much of Friends I favorable~lic rep.1tatioo was built. And as for lI'Oreweigh-ty matters of faith, the elders had taken what theycalled "a Solid opertunity with him in order toDiscover the l'bti ve and Sincerity of his Re-

quest .... " and were highly satisfied.

'!be only potential problem Cuffe presentedwas a delicate ooe for Friends: He was black.'Ibis was a delicate matter because, while anti-slavery sentiment was widespread in the Society,this revulsioo to African sem tude did not neces-sarily imply sympathy for the propositioo of so-cial equality with blacks.

Nevertheless, following several oorevisits, which only confirmed the elders I coovie-tioo of Cuffe's sincerity, Westport's men's meet-ing acceded to the elders, and Cuffe was welcanedinto membership the following oonth.

Cuffe was true to the Society for therest of his life, cootinuing in business and inwork for freed slaves until his death in 1817;then he was buried in Westport Meeting's canetery,but in a far, segregated corner of the burialground.

()}ce at an internatiooal meeting of socialscientists, FrieD:l Kenneth Boulding listened to aloog and scuemat tedious paper entitled "'!be De-cline of the SUperstates i the Rise of a NewWorldOrder?" Afterward, he sunmarized the paper's thesisin a limerick:

It may not be too bad a signWhenSUperstates start to decline I

For what they are SUperAt may be a blooper

To which we shoold never incline.

In 1977, the late Friend David Scull tooksimilar Irish poetic license in his account of themisfortune of Herbert Hadley, then Elcecutive Secr-etary of the Friends World Carmittee for Consulta-tioo's U.S. office, who broke his leg while ice-skating:

A Merry old ~aker named HadleyTried skating, but did it so badly

'!bey had to use pinsFran his neck to his shins

So he wouldnI t disintegrate madly.