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Summer Session Kansan
Friday, July 23, 1965
From the Elderly of 45
With the fervent hope that it will not seem too unseemly (no attempt at alliteration) to our five readers, this is part three of a dialogue between the faculty adviser and the student editor of the Summer Session Kansan. The latter has called the former a "disillusioned liberal" and suggests that even to one of his senior citizen status there may have been causes back in those days before the New Deal or something.
Well, let's take that word "disillusioned" to start with. Broken down it seems to say that illusions have been removed. Fine. I'll accept that. Illusions, but not hopes and dreams and even expectations.
THE ILLUSIONS disappeared the day I came to realize (when was that terrible day?) that I no longer knew the meaning of truth, about which I was absolutely sure in my college days. The illusions disappeared when I got over some fuzzy-mindedness that hit me especially hard about 1947 and when I came to feel that the Communists were as bad as a number of people—but not my current idol, Henry Wallace—said they were.
More illusions disappeared when the Korean War came along, when I finally accepted the fact that Alger Hiss had been a Communist, and when (and this one has come slowly and reluctantly) I decided that, like it or not, we did have a stake in South Viet Nam.
Many of us from the disillusioned liberal generation, as my stern critic and good friend would label us, don't have the illusions about peace that we once had. We know that (or perhaps "think that") the racial problem doesn't admit to an easy solution. We have learned that there are varieties of free speech, and that hoisting placards into the air bearing four-letter words is not one of the freedoms worth fighting for.
AND NOW, MY FRIEND from Ellsworth, about my age. If you want to raise hell with somebody's generation move up about 20 or 25 years. Blame our fathers, not us. We're just coming into public life. One of the finest products of "our generation" was also the man you loved so much, and somebody from "your generation" gunned him down almost two years ago.
Age to Youth: On Liberalism
Our generation may give you some surprises yet. We have Stewart Udall, for example (and McGeorge Bundy, whom many of you cordially hate). We have Martin Luther King. We have men so young they haven't yet become committee chairmen in Congress, and women, too.
Just because a baseball player or boxer is an old man at 40 doesn't mean that we're old at that age. We might not move as rapidly as you do, or be as convinced about truth and falsehood and light and dark, but we still have some energy and vitality, and some of us even think of ourselves as young. And some of us would much rather be going into our forties (is this truly middle age?) than be your age. Be 20 again? Never!—CMP
The old man and the boy were talking seriously about Vietnam, the hot pennant races in both major leagues, and why the kids giggle and scream at the wierd, long-haired a-go-go types on teeeve.
Without warning, the boy turned to the old man and asked: "Granddad, what is a liberal?"
The old man thought a minute and said: "Well, son, my dictionary explains that a liberal is one who favors reform or progress. The word liberal also suggests freedom from prejudice or narrowness, even generosity in praise of a rival. Liberals have long upheld the right of an individual to freedom of belief and freedom of association."
The boy said, "Well, isn't that good?"
"YES, INDEED, son, but the liberals of today are forasing the traditions of liberalism. Instead of upholding the true liberal concepts, they have become intolerant of the views of others and attempt to shout down anyone who may disagree with them."
The boy looked puzzled. "I don't get it," he replied. "Explain what you mean."
The old man smiled and offered to give a few examples, "You see," he said, "we have the Taft-Hartley Act which provides that the individual states may adopt laws which
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say a man doesn't have to join a union to hold a job.
"SUCH LAWS have been passed by 19 states and are in full force and effect. But the liberals want this changed by repealing the section of Taft-Hartley which gives the worker the freedom to join or not join a union as he prefers.
"It is argued," continued the old man, "that a man can get another job if he doesn't want to join a union. But this is somewhat of a joke in the great industries and other highly unionized plants where you must belong to the union, or else.
"Yeah, I guess so," said the boy,
"but what else are the liberals doing?"
"Now we're at the point where the liberals, who originally believed in individual rights, see nothing wrong in suppressing such rights. Do I make myself clear?"
"WELL, SON," said the old man, "they want everything regulated. They push for every socialistic measure offered in Congress. They want more federal controls over education and housing and urge new and largely unneeded government agencies to direct the lives of every citizen. The huge costs of these projects never seem to bother them.
THE OLD MAN relighted his cigar, then observed: "Well, they're what you might call the far-out liberals—no balance, radical, confusion-spreaders and often violent.
"They and the civil rights extremists hate everything in the South. Presently they are trying to block the President's appointment of a distinguished Southerner to the federal court of appeals. This man, J. P. Coleman, is a former governor of Mississippi whose moderate approach to civil rights produced impressive gains in better race relations for his state.
"They are the people, for instance, who are giving Mayor Daley of Chicago such a bad time by lie-downs in the streets and uncontrolled demonstrations because they don't like the superintendent of schools.
"Shall I go on?" asked the old man.
"Oh sure." replied the boy, "but you mentioned extremists. Are they liberals?"
The boy interrupted at this point and said: "But isn't Mayor Daley a big political boss?"
The old man laughed: "Yes, he's a boss all right but he is also a strong mayor who has done more for the Negro race, as columnist Bill White said the other day, than any half-dozen of the Senate ultra-
"EXTREMISTS NEVER seek rational solutions to any problem. No matter what concessions are made to them, it is never enough. They generally discredit themselves after a time, but the harm has already been done.
liberals who are beating the bushes for the Negro vote.
"Then we have the extremists of the right. These hard-nosed 'patriots' are radicals who make a career of abusing anyone who believes there may be more than one side to any question. They are just as bigotred as the professional liberals, but work the other side of the ideological street."
At this stage of the conversation, the boy asked one of those delightfully direct questions which are so typical of youth.
"I THINK I understand what you have said, but don't the liberals do anything that is good?"
The old man flicked the ashes from what was left of his cigar. "Yes, Son," he said, "they have. Through the years the liberals have spearheaded many needed reforms. The progressive measures advocated by such men as the elder Robert LaFollette, the late Sen. George Norris and the two Roosevelts are now laws of the land.
"Moreover, the liberals have historically provoked many of the famous Senate debates on the great issues. Even the recent teach-ins, which aroused so much controversy on Vietnam, at least had the merit of getting both sides before the public.
"BUT MOST OF today's liberals," continued the old man, "have gone back on their earlier teachings. They have become illiberal in their quest for the causes they foster. Present-day liberals prate about freedom of expression, but as every newspaper editor knows, they squawk and complain about every news story or editorial which isn't slanted their way.
"With a doctrinaire liberal," spouted the old man, you can never be half-right. It's always their way, or nothing."
Noting that the old man's cigar was now but a stub, the boy spoke once more: "What you have explained," he said, "is that a liberal isn't really a liberal at all, but a guy who goes around telling other people what they ought to do and then get's mad if they don't follow his advice."
The old man slowly rose from his chair. "Yes, son," he said. "I guess that's about the nub of it. So run along, and thanks for listening."
John S. Knight
BOOK REVIEWS
THE POPULIST REVOLT, by John D. Hicks (Bison Books, $1.75).
One of the fortunate occurrences in the field of paperback publishing has been the appearance of a number of notable volumes of history and biography that stand as the virtually definitive works in certain areas. For more than 30 years John D. Hicks' "The Populist Revolt" has been the standard history of the Farmers' Alliance and the People's party (or Populists), and a big, sturdy, serviceable paperback of the book has been published by the Nebraska Press.
This is a story of eminent concern to the student in Kansas, for many of the Populist wars were fought out in this state in the eighties and nineties. It is well known that William Allen White wrote "What's the Matter with Kansas?" out of his anger and annoyance with the farm rebels, and that Mary Elizabeth Lease, whom he quoted in the editorial, was the rabble-rouser who talked about less corn and more hell—one of the most quoted diatribes in American history.
HICKS DOES NOT JUMP SMACK into the middle of the story but lays the groundwork—Populism did not emerge in a vacuum. There were the hard facts of economic life, there were the railroads, there was speculation. And there were hard times, which couldn't be laid at the door of Jay Gould but did help to build discontent.
The author notes how a North Carolina farm journal said what a lot of people were thinking in the late eighties: "There is something radically wrong in our industrial system. There is a screw loose. The wheels have dropped out of balance. The railroads have never been so prosperous, and yet agriculture languishes. The banks have never done a better or more profitable business, and yet agriculture languishes."
And so on. The railroads and the bankers and high freight rates and hard money policies bothered the farmer, who, with the laborer, was given only the scrapings and the crumbs from what Parrington has termed "the great barbecue." So a true revolution was building, and it broke in the nineties.
There were precursors of Populism, notably the Grange and the Farmers' Alliance, and each had a wide setting, not only the Midwest, but the South and part of the West as well. But in the nineties Populism began to win key elections. In uniting with what was then called "the Democracy" in 1896 it lost a major one, possibly because of the silver issue that marked the campaign, possibly because of Bryan himself.
Populism is like the League of Nations. It was once in bad odor, and it has been called a failure. Yet it was the foundation of something great that came in a later day. Progressivism, numerous pieces of legislation, much of the atmosphere of reform politics owe much to the radicals of late 19th century.
OUR LANDED HERITAGE: THE PUBLIC DOMAIN 1776-1936, by Roy M. Robbins (Bison Books, $1.95).
With a renewal of interest in the land and the soil and the outdoors of America, this important history that appeared in 1942 has special value for the modern reader. It is a history of the public domain, economic and social in its approach, and its concern is with the impact of the free lands upon American history, an impact considered from Frederick Jackson Turner's frontier writings to Henry Nash Smith's "Virgin Land" of 1950.
Roy M. Robbins considers that there have been four periods in American land policy. From 1780 to 1850, when the pioneer became "the most conspicuous agent in the settlement process"; second was 1850 to 1862, when "the West began to become intensely interested in corporate capital and the corporation almost over night came to challenge the settler's claim to being the foremost agent in occupying and developing the vacant areas"; third, 1862 to 1901, the rise of industrialism and the exploitation of the lands, and fourth, 1901 to 1935, the period of conservation coming up to the declaration of the end of the open public domain.
IT IS A detailed and well documented story that Robbins tells There are the frontier farmer, getting the system of the land started, and the settler who buys on credit. He deals with the development of sectional feeling, with the speculators who dabbled with western lands, with the campaign for a homestead act that culminated in 1862 when an act actually was passed.
For many the third section of the book will be most appalling, even to those who know the story. For there are unprincipled buccaneers and profiteers abroad in the land (as there are today, though today they are under stronger curbs). And had it not been for latter-day conservation policies the magnificent system of national parks and forests might be entirely in private hands today.
The conservation story is the glory of this book and in some respects of our history, even as we look about us today and fear for what is happening to America. The many pieces of legislation that started in the Roosevelt-Pinchot era are described in detail, along with the fights for and against them. Robbins wrote during the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, somewhat in a golden aura that surrounded New Deal days. His story is a vivid one, and the book is worth a first look by students of American history.
VENUS IN SPARTA, by Louis Auchincloss (Crest, 60 cents).
Riding high these days because of "The Rector of Justin" is Louis Auchincloss, many of whose earlier novels are appearing now in paperback. One of these is "Venus in Sparta."
It's a story of modern love and marriage, of a man and his mistress, and of the man's infatuation with his own stepdaughter.
TIMON OF ATHENS, by William Shakespeare (Signet Classics, 50 cents)—Latest in an excellent series of paperback Shakespeare. As usual there are a special introduction, a discussion of Shakespeare's life and times, dramatic criticism, commentaries and detailed footnotes.