X resource question on F9

[Steven W. Orr]

This is complicated and I generally don't do well with complex problems 
here, but let's give it a shot. :-(

I have an X resource question that relates to how the xrdb command 
interplays with kdm/xdm.

I have two environment variables:

XUSERFILESEARCHPATH=/home/steveo/.app-defaults/%N%C
XFILESEARCHPATH=/usr/share/X11/app-defaults/%N%C

Also, I have a ~/.Xresources file which contains these two lines:

*customization: -color
*StringConversionWarnings: on

In my ~/.app-defaults I have a file called XTerm-color

When I log in using KDM, I can look at my RESOURCE_MANAGER property and I 
can see along with a lot of other values:

533 > xrdb -query | egrep 'customization|StringConversion'
*StringConversionWarnings:      on
*customization: -color

But the color settings I have in my ~/.app-defaults/XTerm-color are not 
working and I don't have a clue why. But one thing I do see is that if 
after I log in I say:

xrdb -load ~/.Xresources

then everything works just fine.

The goal is that I want my own resources to used when I run my app by 
searching the classes specified in the two variables above.

Can someone help?