Prynce Hopkins

Prynce Hopkins, christened Prince Charles Hopkins, was born March 5, 1885, in Oakland, California, to Charles and Mary Hopkins. From about 1921 to 1948 he spelled his name "Pryns," and thereafter Prynce. He was a wealthy Californian described by the several newspapers as a "socialist millionaire." He had inherited a good deal of stock in the Singer Sewing Machine company, which his father, Charles Harris Hopkins, obtained from his second wife, Ruth Merrit Singer, after she died in childbirth. Prynce was the only child of Charles' third wife, Mary Isabelle (Booth) Hopkins. In 1913, Charles Hopkins died and left Prynce and Mary $3 million each. Prynce used his money to fund leftist causes, which he labeled the "uplift movement," and to self-publish books on psychoanalysis, social reform, and religion. Hopkins obtained his B.A. from Yale University, a Master's degree in education from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from University College London in psychology. He founded and headed a school on his property near Santa Barbara, California, called "Boyland," which employed the Montessori method of education. Following World War I, Prynce moved to England and France, where he owned and operated another school for boys – Chateau de Burres – which employed a modified version of Montessori education, from 1921 to 1939 (when England entered World War II). Similarly, these interests also resulted in Hopkins publishing and editing - with the collaboration of Sydney Greenbie - a little magazine titled The Germ which subsequently changed its title to Dawn. Hopkins was also one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union. ==Arrests==

In 1918, he was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and arrested. His arrest was based less on spying and more for impeding Army recruiting. The United States Department of Justice raided Boyland and seized anti-war literature and other material as evidence. Materials seized were two published books – More Prussian Than Prussia? A Survey of American Conditions (1917) and The Ethics of Murder: From the Lay View-Point (1918) – which were vehemently anti-war and sympathetic to Germany. On August 31, 1918, Hopkins and his co-defendants Pastor George H. Greenfield, the Reverend Floyd Hardin and Carl Broner plead guilty to four counts of violating the Espionage Act. Federal District Court Judge Benjamin F. Bledsoe fined Hopkins $25,000; Greenfield $5,000; Hardin, $5,000; and Broner $500. The defendants promised the court not to publicly discuss the war or distribute anti-war propaganda. The United States Department of Justice continued to investigate Hopkins and read his mail throughout 1918 and most of 1919, but no further action was taken. Hopkins closed Boyland and founded a similar institution in France. On January 12, 1921, while still in exile in Europe, Hopkins married Eileen Maud Thomas of Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, at St. Peter's Church in London (destroyed during WWII) before embarking on a six-month honeymoon around the world. By 1922, he and Eileen returned to the United States. For a year they lived outside New York City where Hopkins founded Labor Age magazine, which was associated with the Socialist League for Industrial Democracy. He and his wife then moved to Pasadena, California, where he befriended Upton Sinclair and became associated with the Industrial Workers of the World. At the same time he renewed his friendship with fellow Socialist Rob Wagner, later editor and publisher of Script, a literary film magazine. Wagner had sent his two sons to Boyland. Wagner introduced Hopkins to other leftists such as writers William B. DeMille and Max Eastman, as well as illustrator Leo Politi, who contributed to Script and Freedom. Attending a rally for 600 striking dockworkers in San Pedro, California, in 1923, Hopkins was arrested on what is today known as Liberty Hill with Sinclair, Sinclair's brother-in-law Hunter Kimbrough, and Hugh Hardyman, who attempted to recite the First Amendment to the Constitution, or Free Speech Amendment. By 1924, Prynce and Eileen returned to England. They adopted a son, Peter, and in 1925, Eileen gave birth to Eileen Mary (known as "Betty May"). In 1929, Eileen divorced Prynce and married a "former suitor," Vernon Armitage. Peter and Betty May became the wards of Armitage after Eileen's death in 1933. (ref. Jennifer Hopkins) ==Freedom magazine==

While living in Pasadena, California, during World War II, Hopkins founded a magazine entitled Freedom: A Quarterly Commentary On All Aspects of Liberty. The publication offered an assortment of medical, social, psychological and pacifist reports to its small, but supportive, circle of readers. Contributors to Freedom included an eclectic group of writers: Mahatma Gandhi contributed an article on the role of women; Dr. Daniel H. Kress, one of the first physicians to recognize the health dangers of tobacco, also contributed content; and Harold F. Bing, who was imprisoned during World War I as a conscientious objector and was active in War Resisters' International, wrote regularly for the magazine. Among other contributors were, Dr. Abraham H. Maslow, considered the father of Humanism in psychology; Ada Farris, a writer for Script and The Saturday Evening Post; and Gilean Douglas, who wrote for New Mexico Quarterly. Los Angeles artist Leo Politi served as art director and regularly contributed illustrations. ==Anti-smoking activism==

Hopkins authored the book Gone Up in Smoke: An Analysis of Tobaccoism, in 1948. He was an early observer to warn the public of medical and social problems associated with tobacco. He documented the shortened life and diseases caused by smoking. John Harvey Kellogg first used the term "Tobaccoism" in 1923. At age 21, Hopkins visited the Battle Creek Sanitarium for his father's treatment in 1906 when Kellogg was the medical superintendent. ==Published works==

• The Germ (Santa Barbara, Calif.: 1913) • Dawn (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1914-?) • More Prussian Than Prussia? A Survey of American Conditions (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1917) • The Ethics of Murder: From the Lay View-Point (1918) • The Philosophy of Helpfulness (Minneapolis, Minn.: Pioneer Printers, [1920]) • Father or Sons? A Study in Social Psychology (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1927) • The Psychology of Social Movements: A Psycho-Analytic View of Society (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1938) • Aids to Successful Study (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1941) • From Gods to Dictators: Psychology of Religions and their Totalitarian Substitutes (Girard, Kan.: Haldeman-Julius Publications, 1944) • World Culture (Pasadena, Calif.: Freedom Publications, 1945) • Gone Up in Smoke: An Analysis of Tobaccoism (Culver City, Calif.: The Highland Press, 1948) • A Westerner Looks East (Los Angeles: Warren F. Lewis, 1951) • Both Hands Before The Fire (Penobscot, Me.: Traversity Press, 1962) • The Social Psychology of Religious Experience (New York: Paine-Whitman, 1962) • World Invisible (Penobscot, Me.: Traversity Press, 1963) • Orientation, Socialization and Individuation (London: Asia Publishing House, 1963) ==References==