Pacifist, Alumnus, Dies at 88

Caleb Foote ’39, former managing editor of the Harvard Crimson who later became a pacifist organizer and notable advocate for bail reform, died of a blood infection on March 4 in Santa Rosa, California. He was 88 years old.

A New England native, Foote was born in Cambridge and attended Harvard College from 1935 to 1939.

Two years later, he received his masters degree in economics from Columbia University.

At Harvard, Foote lived in Whigglesworth his freshman year and in Eliot House, where he was elected to the House Committee. As a sophomore, he ran for Student Council President.

In his early Crimson years, Foote was a sports writer, reporting on lightweight crew, before becoming managing editor his senior year.

As a Quaker, his pacifist beliefs led him to serve two prison sentences during World War II.

The first indictment came in 1943, when his conscientious objector status during a draft led to a conviction for violating the Selective Service Act.

In 1945, he spent a year in a federal penitentiary for similar charges until he was pardoned by President Truman.

He then went to the University of Pennsylvania Law School to further pursue his beliefs in criminal justice reform.

He later became a law professor and taught in the subsequent years at The University of Nebraska College of Law, Penn’s Law School, and finally at the Boalt School of Law at Berkeley, where he retired in 1987.

During his twenty years there, he received the UC Berkeley Distiguished Teaching Award in 1983.

He is best known for “Studies on Bail”, his book that was published in 1966 arguing for the reform of the bail system.

He is survived by his wife Hope, his children Robert, Eliot, Andrew, David, and Heather, and their four grandchildren. They could not be reached for comment.