Transparent Eterm in .xinitrc

[s3raphim]

I've been working on this all weekend and am quite stumped. I am running X11 with all the SDK stuff on OSX.3 on my G3 900MHz iBook. I cannot for the life of me open up Eterm from the .xinitrc file and have it get the background right. The background is set in the line above it using Esetroot. Instead I get random backgrounds.
I'm using the commands:
source /sw/bin/init.sh
...stuff...
Esetroot -f /Users/me/directories/file &
Eterm -0 --trans --buttonbar 0 --scrollbar-floating &
exec quartz-wm

After further experimentation, checking that everything is installed, etc, etc. I have reached several conclusions:

The problem is with Esetroot, not Eterm even though they are the same package, because aterm does not get the background at all when I try to run IT transparent. (another question....why?)

Running Eterm from the Applications menu of X11 works just fine when the background is set in .xinitrc using Esetroot

I can make Eterm have the correct background by typing "Etbg --trans"

The second Eterm I open gets the correct background (as does the third, fourth, etc)

Why, why, why?

If this just won't work, how have you guys been running your transparent X11 terminals?