Legal Name Research Articles

The Nichiren Shoshu of America

The United States has become a mission territory for the Japan-based Nichiren Shoshu (the orthodox sect of Nichiren). Since 1960, a sizable number of Americans has been converted to this alien faith. As a Buddhist movement in the United States it represents a small portion of the energetic propagation eflorts of the gigantic Sokagakkai (the ValueCreating Society) of Japan, which believe that only its version of "True Buddhism" can assure salvation for all mankind because other world religions have become obsolete and irrelevant to most contemporary men. Although Nichiren Shoshu tenets, rituals, and commandments are relatively simple, this faith demands that it be urgently shared with others, a fact that drives each convert to become a zealous missionary. A series of random sample surveys conducted among these Buddhists in the Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York areas indicates, among other things, that relatively youthful, fairly well-educated Americans are eagerly embracing the Nichiren Shoshu for some striking reasons, and that it is a vital religious force that deserves scholarly attention. Probably for the first time in the his-, tory of East-West relations, a large number of Occidentals, including some 200, 000 families of various racial and social backgrounds in the United States, are enthusiastically embracing an Asiatic religion.' These believers of Nichiren Shoshu (the orthodox sect of Nichiren, a 13thcentury Buddhist saint of Japan) have rejected their Judeo-Christian heritage in order to follow a Japanese-based Buddhism which has spread during the past decade to some parts of Southeast Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Western hemisphere. Of all these areas, the Buddhist propagation has progressed most rapidly in the United States in the past five years. The loud, monotonous, and almost hypnotic chanting of "Nam-myoho-rengekyo" (Devotion to the Wondrous Law of Lotus Sutra) has been heard from California to New York, from Milwaukee to Dallas as the United States has become the foremost Japanese Buddhist mission territory. The command post of the Nichiren 169 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.55 on Tue, 23 Aug 2016 05:05:33 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 170 REVIEW OF RELIGIOUS ,RESEARCH Sholshu of America, located at the Ocean Front of Santa Monica, California, is headed by Joint-Headquarters-Chief Masayasu Sadanaga, who recently changed his legal name to George M. Williams. The life of this energetic man of 42 is totally dedicated to the task of "kosen rufu," or worldwide propagation of the true Buddhism. As the head disciple in the United States of President Daisaku Ikeda of the Nichiren Shoshu Sokagakkai (Value-Creating Society) of Japan," he represents the dynamic society, which in Japan claims a membership of over 7.5 million households, and the society's political arm, the Komeito (Clean Govern-

Al Guard's Night of Nights

I know my rights. Anything I say can be used against me therefore you can't force me to say anything, lest it be used, by you, against me. You don't have to teU me. I know my rights. I'm also entitled to an attorney, either one of my own choosing, or a court-appointed one in the event I can't afford one, which I can, or could, if I wanted one. A mouthpiece. Get me sprung out of this joint in no time, right? Raymond Burr, maybe. Judd for the Defense. Whose defense? Not mine. Who needs those guys? A mouthpiece. Who's a more famous mouthpiece around this town than me? I've logged more TV hours defending a cUent than Perry Mason and Judd and the Defenders put together. And what a cUent I had! How about the New York Gothams for a cUent? Richest cUent in the city, probably, and the hardest to defend over the past four seasons. It's easy to defend a team that's winning pen nants, not much goes wrong you have to find an excuse for. But when they're on the skids? It's no smaU task, let me tell you. And now they're prosecuting me. And don't give me any of that stuff about it really being the state that's prosecuting me. It's the Gothams. My old dient But I know my rights. My name is Al Guard. My rank is announcer. Ex-announcer. My social se curity number is 150-28-2600. And that's all you're enti?ed to. Geneva Con vention. Right? My real name? It's Al Guard, like I said. My legal name? That's a different matter. Asa Weingarten is my legal name, but despite what you poUce types may beUeve legal and real are not necessarily the same thing. My real name is Al Guard and that's who I am. Ask the Gothams, they created me. But if you boys want a statement I don't see any reason why I shouldn't give you one. Even though I know my rights I'm wilUng to talk. I'm not suffering from any prosecution complex. Sorry. I've been dying to say that ever since you boys brought me in. It just seemed to fit at that moment.

Judicial Procedures for a Change–of–Name in The United States

THE ESSENTIAL FREEDOMS which citizens of the United States enjoy today include one which is often overlooked because, like most of our other rights, it is so frequently taken for granted. Yet we, in America, perhaps possess the freedom, alone of all the peoples of the world, to change the names we were given at birth. Yet, as shall subsequently be made clear in this paper, it is not an absolute guarantee, any more than the inalienable rights of speech and assembly are to be regarded as without exception. For limitations are placed on all of our freedoms to insure that freedom for one may not deny the equally valid rights of others. This paper, part of a longer study of the practice of namechanging in the United States, treats of the methods by which a change-of-name may be effected in a court of law. After a brief account of the statutory foundations of common law and judicial procedures and a description of the judicial process itself, attention be focused on the grounds legitimate or otherwise for the approval and denial of court petitions and some of the more memorable legal decisions in the past forty years on the right of assumption of famous names. * The Legal Basis for N ame-Ohanging In most states of the Union, an individual has the common law right to adopt any name he chooses and once he has used and become generally kno,vn by it, it will constitute his legal name just as much as if he had borne it from birth.1 This may be broadly interpreted to include the right of any individual to change his name without application to the

The Designation of Women Biologists

I WAS very glad to see from Prof. Cockerell's letter in NATURE of Dec. 20, that scientific men now realise the importance of continuity in a woman's name. When I first married in 1911 and kept my own name I had to overcome the opposition of a number of the leading scientific people of that day, who bitterly objected to my utilising the laws of our country, which permit a woman not only to use her maiden name throughout her married life, but also retain it as her only legal name. The Royal Society even refused to continue a grant which I had from it unless I adopted my husband's name! So may I, as one who persistently kept her own name for scientific work (and has borne the brunt of the difficulty of doing so against an unreasoning antagonism), welcome and support Prof. Cockerell's suggestion that all women should do so?