More than a year ago, in the sack of mail delivered each afternoon to the Crimson, a stream of letters began to appear. Unlike most of the mail--announcements of bassoon concerts and speeches by nuclear chemists, or indignant responses to recent articles--these letters addressed only the great issues of the day, and with a style and a penmanship that made them unmistakable.

Most began with the same salutation: "Sister/Bro. Americans--" And each came from the same E. 162 St. New York address and from the same man. 162nd St., it turns out, is in the South Bronx, and Henry Ratliff, a 66-year old retired Methodist minister, lives in a rooming house there, commuting daily to the Lower Manhattan offices of the city welfare department, where he is a caseworker.

But more than the address and the salutation were constant in the letters. Ratliff's style never changed--a bare-bones prose that results, he says, from long hours of thinking before he puts pen to paper. "I read the news, and then I try to let it sift through my mental passages, so I can boil it down...People are not going to read long drawn-out writings," the University of Texas graduate says, adding that his models of clarity include Bertrand Russell, Leo Tolstoy and the King James Bible. All the letters are written early in the morning, "one, two, three, when the moonlight is in the window and my mind is the clearest." And each the product of an undivided attention: "I don't have a radio, a television, a telephone--you would be shocked at the simplicity of it all," Ratliff says.

Ratliff's philosophy doesn't vary much either--his preoccupations include the environment, arms control and civil liberties, but he also has a strong nostalgic bent, recommending regularly the pastoral virtues perhaps closer to his San Antonio birthplace than his current inner-city home. The child of a Methodist minister, the grandson of a circuit-riding preacher, Ratliff says he was exposed early to the fight for social justice--"back in the '30s, my parents always voted the straight Socialist ticket, and they pioneered in trying to get the whites and Blacks to work together," a task Ratliff--by his own estimation one of the very few white residents of his area of the South Bronx--continues to pursue. "I like living here a little more all the time," Ratliff says.

The uncommon mix of nostalgia and liberalism reflects Ratliff's belief that some change--almost any change--is needed. "You've heard the old saying that there's more than one way to skin a cat," he says. "I try in my letters to give people lots of options." But one political movement Ratliff rejects absolutely is the currently resurgent far right, especially the fundamentalist Christian "Moral Majority" faction. "I'm afraid I'm not a very tolerant person," he says--his letters fulminate against what he terms the hypocrisy of preachers like Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell. And Ratliff is one adversary that knows his Scripture: "To right wing evangelicals, Jesus says, 'You call me Lord but do not the things I command you.'"

Though he's no fan of Ronald Reagan, Ratliff wasn't unhappy when President Carter lost his November battle with the American public. Carter, and particularly his national security sidekick Zbigniew Brezezinski, are regularly attacked for a hypocrisy Ratliff says rivals Falwell's. "Carter goes and teaches a Bible class, while people are dying. Have we lost all our compassion?" he asks.

In an age when apocalyptic thinking is the norm, Ratliff is no exception. "We are living at a precipice," he insists, and letter after letter rails against the MX missile, the concept of limited nuclear war, or draft registration. But though the days are dark Ratliff says men must steel themselves to action. "Whether we can avert tragedy I don't know. I do know we ought to be moving in the right direction. Where's there's life there's hope, and anyway humans have never had a guarantee on tomorrow," he says. And, he adds, "If we go down, then we ought to go down fighting."

And so here are Ratliff's diagnoses and prescriptions, as compiled over the past year. They are printed not because they might be thought odd, but because they are spare statements of some fundamental truths. William E. McKibben   Dec. 2, 1979

Friends--

If Harvard people embrace individual Mormon ethics and metaphysics of James, Royce, Whitehead, Santayana, Hocking; eschew the worst cleave to the best of pilgrim fathers--in a moral commitment equal to the intellectual: you can transcend modern man into a dramatic new amalgam, generating a powerful and irresistible public mood, in which the weakest and most derelict find it easy to do right and hard to do wrong.   Henry Ratliff

*   Dec. 3, 1979

Brothers/Sisters--

Scenario

After Nov. 1980 election, the Pentagon sets up a strike force, Congress reimposes conscription, a presidential war ensues, Mideast oil is cut off, Europe-Japan-USA go into convulsions, PPCC (President-Pentagon-Court-Congress) disappear.   Henry Ratliff

*   December 5, 1979

Friends--

60 years ago the hyperactive child is a Hero. He milks the cows, feeds the chickens, baskets the eggs, slops the pigs, harnesses the team, plows the field, gathers the harvest, saddles the horse, rides the range, drives the car, cuts the wood, mows lawns, picks cotton, reads novels, dates girls, sweeps the house, mops the kitchen, boy scouts, plays sports, deerhunts with his father, goes to dances, practices the piano, sings in the choir, plays in the orchestra, attends school, travels widely, and engages in sundry other activities.

Today--trapped in megalopolis--the hyperactive child is a villain and given damaging medication.   Henry Ratliff

*   December 13, 1979

Friends--

Carter's Record

1. He prositutes human rights as an excuse to badger the Soviets.

2. Denies dry western states funding for water.

3. Pushes hard the neutron bomb and nuclear missiles for Europe.

4. Gives Chinese vice premier in his journey here unlimited opportunity to arouse cold war psychosis.

5. Provides undercover warrant for the same vice premier to invade Vietnam where thousands are slain and world war looms.

6. Presses a congressional committee for power to abrogate environmental safeguards.

7. Best friend the oil companies ever had. Decontrols domestic crude. Hits the little guy hard in his dwindling pocketbook.

8. When everyone sees his incompetence, he scapegoats--fires top cabinet officers.

9. Gives green light for OIL to ripoff Georges Bank--ocean's most fertile spawning ground for tuna.

10. Plays dirty reelection politics. Freely hands out your tax money and mine to favorites who will insure his return to the White House in 1980.

11. CIA and State Department tell him what can happen if the shah comes here. Willfully goes ahead. Calls for uncritical national unity to consolidate his personal power.

12. He and Brzezinski reincarnate John Foster and Allen Dulles in brinksmanship. Repudiated by tragic event years ago.

13. Is the presidential office too powerful? Is this the man we want in the White House another term?   Henry Ratliff

*   June 10, 1980

Sister/Brother Americans--

Life would be tough under the Kremlin. At the same time, it's rough under the Pentagon. Even worse under vast stockpiles of germ warfare, atomic and hydrogen weaponry. Odds for survival are likely as good or better if we keep only police, national-coastguard and disarm unilaterally. If pushed out of some markets by Soviets, we probably can make that up by billions saved on the defense establishment. If U.S. must have a nuclear unbrella, use that of Britain and France.   Henry Ratliff   July 28, 1980

Sister/Bro. Americans--

1. Decentralize everything: government, city, corporate farm, multinational conglomerate.

2. Consume less, work less, produce less, spend less, travel less.

3. Every family have one acre of cow, chickens, orchard, garden, hedgerow, trees.

4. Milk cow by hand, now lawn with manual mower, cultivate garden with handplow, become independent of gasoline driven machine, substitute candlelight for electricity.

5. In tilling the land utilize organic farming: chemical fertilizer is a finite resource, ruins the humus, poisons underground water reservoirs.

6. Read books from public library, sell the car, walk to the local college for courses, degrees, symphony and Euripides.

7. Thus, U.S.A. may save air, soil, water from irreversible contamination.

9. These proposals visionary? This is the way life was lived in the U.S. 60 years ago.   Henry Ratliff

*   October 6, 1980

Sister/Bro. Americans--

Jesus

Capital punishment is "life for life." He opposes prayer in public schools, violates his "pray to your father in secret," evolution is growth--Jesus is growth, he associates with lesbian and homosexual--always is friend to the outcast and rejected, is for ERA--elevates even the woman taken in adultery, prince of peace--he is not for another round in the thermonuclear race to Armageddon, favors merciful abortion to prevent a tide of the unwanted from filling welfare rolls, prison cells and death rows to the electric chair. To right wing evangelicals Jesus says, "You call me Lord but do not the things I command you."   Henry Ratliff

*   Oct. 28, 1980

Sister/Bro. Americans--

It takes 10 years (1980-90) to rebuild New York City's subway into the safest, fastest, cleanest and most modern in the world. Labor, management, skills, materials, necessity, money from Washington's printing presses are right now available. This giant project triggers rebuilding urban America. Vastly increases employment as well as revenues for government and private industry. The MX missile for 1980-90 at 50 to 100 billion dollars destroys Nevada-Utah and threatens human survival. Rebuilding NYC subway blesses humankind.   Henry Ratliff

*   November 6, 1980

Sister/Bro. Americans--

Ronald Reagan says "the Bible is against lesbianism/homosexuality; the Bible's good enough for me." "There you go again," Ronald Reagan. Nowhere in the 4 Gospels does Jesus as much as mention lesbianism/homosexuality. He does say, "Judge not that you be not judged."   Henry Ratliff

*   Nov. 6, 1980

Sister/Bro. Americans--

Jerry Falwell, right wing evangelical preacher, Lynchburg Virginia, distorts Scripture. The youthful Jesus, dying on a cruel Roman cross, says of those killing him, "Father, forgive them." Is that a basis for "justified capital punishment?"   Henry Ratliff

*   Nov. 8, 1980

Sister/Bro. Americans--

Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 are limited nuclear war. It is limited because the United States at the time has only a few atom bombs. Also, it has a monopoly. Neither condition any longer persists. Americans need to reread John Hersey's Hiroshima. Anyone who calls for limited nuclear war is a madman. He must be seized and placed under heavy guard in a ward for the criminally insane.   Henry Ratliff