Author: The Archive (The Archive)

of two business managers who would laterrngo on to become distinguished editorsrnin their own right. During his career atrnRandom House, Albert Erskine’s clientsrnincluded William Faulkner, EudorarnWelty, Ralph Ellison, James Michener,rnJohn O’Hara, and William Styron, asrnwell as Erskine’s own mentor. Red Warren.rnAlbert’s successor in Baton Rougernwas John Palmer, who would later editrnboth the Sewanee Review and...

CORRESPONDENCErnLetter Fromrnthe Argentariornby Andrei NavrozovrnThe Princesses and the PearnThe sun is no longer the hot butteredrnpancake worshipped by the ancientrnSlavs: It has been reformed into an altogetherrnmore Christian, Lenten, and distantrnfigure. The sea is still beautiful,rnthough it too no longer moves with thernsame pagan frankness, its orgiastic,rnby turns manic and depressive, barometricallyrnmotivated summer feasts andrnfamines...

la with a musical fountain that is also arnclock was but an unattainable social mirage,rnand the whole scenario would repeatrnitself, I goading the nobility of PortornErcole with Franco’s ever-lengtheningrnarm and they sending me on an everwilderrngoose chase. Meanwhile, timernwas running out, and Franco seemed tornbe spending night after night on hisrnmany mobile phones without any...

ing, iron-pumping, and track-suited joggingrnin trainers can protect the excessivernhoney (or McHoney) guzzler from becomingrnas portly as Louis the Handsome.rnOnly in America.rnIf Pooh and Piglet represent thernrugged Western frontier and the “hawgraising”rnSouth of America respectively,rnRabbit represents the very core of the nation,rnWashington D.C. Rabbit ain’t Babbitt.rnRabbit’s obsessive and useless fussingrnand organizing of other peoplernplaces him...

VITAL SIGNSrnPOLITICSrnThe Conquestrnof the United Statesrnand Puerto Ricornby Bill KauffmanrnOn the matter of statehood, PuertornRieo’s outstanding uoveHst hasrnwritten . . . actually, I have no idea whatrnhe has written, because I do not readrnSpanish, nor do I plan to learn. Shouldrnour flag be defaced by a 51st star for PuertornRico—which is, admittedly, more deservingrnof stellification...

the Elks and Odd Fellows and Rotary tornsuggest that either Marin flavored hisrnrum with Mencken or the Sage of Baltimorernwas an overactive editor, “The SadrnCase of Porto Rico” explains that “ThernAmerican flag found Porto Rico pennilessrnand content. It now flies over a prosperousrnfactory worked by slaves whornhave lost their land and may soon loserntheir guitars...

lot to ask.rnAs during the Cold War, U.S. policymakersrnassure us that independentistasrnare “left of red,” in Eric Burdon’s felicitousrnphrase. W-liile it shouldn’t muchrninterest Americans what kind of economicrnsystem other peoples may choose,rnthe messy fact is that statehood is advertisedrnby its proponents as a pass on therngravy train, a free tray at the welfare-staternbuffet, while independence...

to suppose they could get away with it,rnand Ms. Harman, in her interviews,rnsounded surprised as well as bitter at thernbother she caused. Was not one vesselrnmade to honor, she may well have felt,rnand another to dishonor? I do not knowrnif she has read Hogg’s novel. But herrnfrank reply that it is all right to violaternprinciple...

icans has, rightly or wrongly, been strictlyrnregulated by the federal governmentrnsince 1934, and many states ban civiliansrnfrom owning such gims. Semi-automaticsrnhave been used by Americans forrnsport and other legitimate purposes sincernthe turn of the century (before the militaryrnstarted using them), and after WorldrnWar II, the federal government sold surplusrnsemi-automatic rifles, carbines, andrnpistols to the public...

all to honest folks trying to protect themselves?rnIf small, inexpensive guns can bernas easily used to defend against crime asrnthey can be used to commit crime, howrncan you justify bans on the only guns thernpoor can afford—the poor who enjoy lessrnpolice protection than the rest of us do?rnWliat about those “cop killer bullets”rnthat NBC first...

nications will no longer be hinderedrnby national and linguistic differences,rnwhich will give way to a universal andrnscientific language, with its formulas instantlyrnrecognized, accepted, and usedrnby everyone. H2O is, of course, more scientificrnand more categorical than “water”;rnmoreover, it indicates a scientificallyrnfixed reality, with its potentiality ofrnuniversality. Yet H2O has two shortcomingsrnthat are inescapable. One is that...

Churchill. But back to “Hyacinth” —rnwhat would happen if it were written inrnHungarian as “Hajszint”? Written, morernthan spoken, with the consequence thatrnamong its readers the idea would occurrnthat the English language, that Englishrnnames, that English women are ugly.rnIf words were only symbols of thingsrn(this is what the computer suggests theyrnare) their meaning would have thernequivalence...

fall of the Iron Curtain and the death ofrnlong-time premier Marshal Tito, the decompositionrncommenced.rnToday, Yugoslavia is a fraction of itsrnformer domain, comprising the republicsrnof Serbia (which includes thernKosovo region) and Montenegro. Croatia,rnSlovenia, and Macedonia have seceded.rnUnder the current truce, Bosnia-rnHerzegovina is a federation of thernRepublic of Srpska and the Muslim-rnCroat enclaves demanded by the UnitedrnStates....

Hoc was climbed and capixired byrn225 Rangers. . . . This was the mostrndifficult of the landings.rnI study these words as I walk across thernColleville-St-Laurent cemetery on a surprisinglyrnblustery summer day, overcastrnand damp. The cemetery is the finalrnresting place of some 9,386 Americansrnkilled in the battle for Normandy, andrnthe debris of war—obstacles set up byrnRommel...

that kind of faith.rnThe question that Ryan gets at—whyrndo men sacrifice themselves?—is somethingrnmore important than jingoism,rnsomething more elemental than the oftenrnsuperficial patriotic gore of filmdom,rnand something today’s conservatives arerntrying hard to forget, which just may bernwhy we are losing our country. Thernfilm’s final, bloody sequence is reminiscentrnof Sam Peckinpah’s The WildrnBunch. Ryan’s GIs are faced...

The Hundredth Meridianrnby Chilton Williamson, ]r.rnTwenty Years and CountingrnI have lived now in the West 20 years,rntwo years past the age of hahihty for militaryrnservice (if there were a WesternrnStates of America, and if they had a draft)rnand one year short of my political majorityrnand the suffrage. Although you canrnhave spent half a century living...

from Jim Bridger and Joe Walkerrnthrough John Muir, Charles Ingallsrn(Laura Wilder’s father), Theodore Rooseveltrn(even Teddy, who had to tearrnhimself finally from its near-fatal allurernto fulfill a more glorious destiny inrnWashington, D.C.), Aldo Leopold, MaryrnAustin, Zane Grey, Wallace Stegner,rnand Ed Abbey, to name a few West-intoxicatedrnsouls known to history. Thernsame goes, however, for hundreds ofrnthousands of...

Modern Editions of Classic Works for Readers TodayrnFAME AND THE FOUNDING FATHERSrnESSAYS BY DOUGLASS ADAIRrnEdited by Trevor ColbournrnThe fifteen articles, essays, notes, and documents gatiiered in this collectionrnare a permanent contribution to study of the American founding. For,rnamong historians of the founding era, the late Douglass Adair is a reveredrnfigure. As teacher, critic, and editor...

THE MEDJUGORJE DECEPTIONrnProponents of Medjugorje like to talk about its fruits,rnbut ignore the broken families, the pregnant nuns, the poorrnpeople bilked of their money, the division in the Church, thernde facto schism, the worst fighting in Europe since WorldrnWar II, the ethnic cleansing of Muslims from Gradno, justrnfive kilometers from Medjugorje — all which followedrninexorably...

EDITORrnThomas FlemingrnSENIOR EDITOR, BOOKSrnChilton Williamson, jr.rnMANAGING EDITORrnScott P. RichertrnART DIRECTORrnAnna Mycek-WodeckirnCONTRIBUTING EDITORSrnHarold O.J. Brown, KatherinernDalton, Samuel Francis,rnGeorge Garrett, Paul Gottfried,rn].0. Tate, Michael Washburn,rnClyde WilsonrnCORRESPONDING EDITORSrnBill Kauffman, Donald Livingston,rnWilliam Murchison, William Mills,rnAndrei Navrozov, Jacob Neusner,rnSrdja TrifkoricrnEDITORIAL SECRETARYrnLeann DobbsrnPUBLISHERrnThe Rockford InstituternPUBLICATION DIRECTORrnGuy C. ReffettrnCIRCLlL^riON MANAGERrnCindy LinkrnA publication of The Rockford Institute.rnEditorial and Advertising Offices;rn928 North Main Street....

resent a shrinkage, not an expansion, inrnthe welfare state. On the other hand, therncomparison witli food stamps is apt, butrnRockwell does not carr}’ it through. Hernmaintains that vouchers will inevitablyrnlead to tighter government controls onrnprivate schools. Have food stamps led tornsuch controls on grocer}’ stores? Governmentrnpower to regulate private schoolsrndoes not deri’e from government financingrnof...

CULTURAL REVOLUTIONSrnWILLIAM JEFFERSON CLINTONrnand his supporters have stepped up theirrnefforts to restore repubhcan governmentrnto the United States. Responding to thernStarr report —and the accompanyingrnboxes of documentation sent to Congressrn—the President’s liberal championsrntook up the chant that “It’s all about sex”rnand argued that the real debate in thernHouse Judiciary Committee is over therndefinition of an impeachable...

Plus qa change, plus la meme chose.rnGermany’s policy in the region traditionallyrnhas been anti-Serb; it remains so today,rnno less than in 1914 or 1941. In Decemberrn1991, Hans-Dietrich Genscher,rnthen-foreign minister of the Federal Republic,rninsisted on what the rest of thernEuropean Union subsequently came tornregard as the “mistaken and premature”rn(in the words of Lord Carrington) recognitionrnof Croatia....

you might find the occasional welfarernmom in Baltimore who has had a “publicrnauthorit)-” sew Norplant into her armrnso she can stay on the dole, but Americansrnhardly live in fear of “placing at thernmercy of the intervention of public authoritiesrnthe most personal and most reservedrnsector of conjugal intimacy,” asrnPope Paul put it.rnNo, our condition is more...

man that histon’ ouglit to remember asrnthe greatest American pohtical figure ofrnthe latter half of the 20th centur’. Simpl’rnput, George Wallace was decadesrnahead of his time in identifying the conserrnati”e-populist agenda of the 1990’s,rnand he needed neither consultants norrnpollsters to tell him which way the politicalrnwinds were blowing.rnWallace’s demise occasioned the predictablernresponse from the political...

PERSPECTIVErnOne World, One Leader, One godrnby Thomas FlemingrnThe unity of Christendom and the restoration of the Americanrnrepublic are themes that have intertwined their wayrnthrough the numbers of this magazine, Hke the twin strands ofrnthe DNA double helix. The message does not always meetrnwith approval. Recently, a man of wealth and influence told usrnthat he was...

Satan’s—will some day be reconciled to God finds its modernrnanalogue in the theory (going back at least to Kant) that allrnmoral principles, to be valid, must be applied universally. LikernGod, we are to be no respecters of persons, and if we have a dutyrnto rear our children, that duty must be generalized as an obligationrnto...

money by looting their churches—perhaps the inevitable responsernof a consumerist society. “Ironically,” the dealer whornturned on his colleagues and collaborated with the investigationrnwas a descendant of both Rembrandt and Rubens.rnAfter the break-up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, Westernrnchurches rushed in, not to help the struggling Orthodox—rnoppressed by decades of atheist communism—to get back onrntheir...

knows wliat else. The only thing worse than schism would be arnfalse nnih’ based on power and self-interest.rnM’ own latitudinarian views, which have succeeded in offendingrnmost of my serious Christian friends (whether Orthodox,rnProtestant, or Catholic), were inspired by English theologiansrnas different from each other as Richard Baxter andrnThomas Browne. The opening pages of Browne’s ReligiornMedici...

ern and Western, especially at the points in history when theyrnare explicitly opposing each other or together combating thernsame contemporary errors. The happy result of this can be arngenuine ecumenism, an ecumenism, if you will, of the “antiecumenical,”rninnocent of ideology or indifferentism. DomrnGerard Calvet, abbot of the traditional Benedictine abbey ofrnthe Madeleine, Le Barroux in...

birth and so he adheres to the dogma of that church asrnan inheritance; this is only human. But he is a wise man,rnand is inferior to none of those who are perfect in wisdomrnamong men. He wrote most especially as a commentatorrnof Aristotelian philosophy, and of the Old andrnNew Testaments. Most of the principal conclusions...

is tlie most formal explanation of the faith and practice of thernChurch, and not the fact of God revealing the faith “once for allrndelixered to the saints” (and to which the human mind is ablernto gie its reasonable assent), then the faith is simply one stagernin a dialectical progress which leaves it outmoded, and doctrinalrndifferences...

modernist priest in Walker Percy’s novel: “So yon pray for therndead. Yon know, something has changed in you.”rnHe who is in the world does not understand, or rather understandsrnand hates such a scene as our little lamentationrnover Gennadios Scholarios in August 1994. The nuns and Irncould not both be in the right about the primacy...

“one body, and one Spirit, even as e are called in one hope ofrnvour calling, one Lord, one faith, one bapdsm, one God andrnFather of all, who is above all, and through all, and in ou all”rn(Ephesians 4:3-6). This organic imagery does not negate thernconcept of institutional unit}’, but it does not appear to requirernit....

dividualism and further social decay.rnAgainst this background, it is hardly surprising that the Lawrnon Religion was passed, even though many of the DumarndepuHes who voted for it had doubts about certain aspects ofrnthe legislation, fearing that the law could once again turn thernOrthodox Church into an arm of the state. The present patriarch,rnAleksey, is probably...

Russian Orthodoxy. From the icon painting of Andrei Rublevrnto cliurch architecture, both wooden and stone, to the literaturernof Dostovevsk}’ and Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Orthodox havernattempted to reflect the divine, to reach sublime heights of spiritualrnecstasy, and to plumb the mysteries of man’s relationshiprnwith God. hideed, the grand themes of the best of Russian literaturernare sin,...

what sort of job it would be. All I can sayrnis that if you join us, you mustn’t bernafraid of forgery, and you mustn’t bernafraid of murder.” Ernest Cuneo, thernlawyer and Roosevelt administration insiderrnwho served as liaison betweenrnBSC, the White House, and various U.S.rngovernment agencies, relates in a recent-rn1″ declassified memo how the BSC operated:rnIt...

Mata Hari known by her nom d’espionage,rn”Cynthia.” In her biography ofrnCynthia, Cast No Shadow, Mary Lovellrnrelates that both Vandenberg and SenatorrnConnally were targeted for seduction;rnwhile Connally told Cynthia, “You’rernwasting your time, my dear,” Vandenbergrnwas easier prey.rnYet another of Vandenberg’s BSC romancesrnwas with Eveline Paterson, arncharming, statuesque blonde and a professionalrnpublicist for the cause of CreatrnBritain:...

defense of human nature, has not Mr.rnBethell attempted to foist on us that discreditedrnconstruct, homo economicus?rnMr. Bethell readily turns this objectionrnaside. Let us suppose that someonerndid limit his own use of commonly heldrnland, hoping thereby to aid conservation.rnHe would fail utterly in his purpose. Hernwould merely provide those more self-interestedrnthan himself with more land tornexploit....

Evelyn Waugh, Virginia Woolf. . . . Thernnames are only a hint at the true dimensionsrnof that amazing rainbow-likernbridge, and whichever way you look at it,rnup or down, Connolly’s playing Sainte-rnBeuve against the three contemporariesrnhe had hand-picked for the purposes ofrnbenign self-identification is reminiscentrnof Mayakovsky’s ingenious claim that hisrndeadliest competitor for the position ofrnRussia’s greatest...

Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnPaleo-Malthusianismrn”Parson,” wrote the Tory radical WilliamrnCobbett in an open letter to ThomasrnMalthus in 1819, “1 have, during my life,rndetested many men; but never any onernso much as you.” Cobbett’s hatred ofrnMalthus, the founder of modern populationrnscience, is comparable to the dislikernthat most conservatives feel toward himrntoday, though they probably would notrncare...

that human nature does not exist, thatrnman is whatever his “environment”rnmakes him, and that if we just managernthe environment, we can also managernand manipulate human beings and theirrnbehavior.rnhideed, as Paul Gottfried points outrn(in an article in the Social Contract),rnMalthus’s essay was written primarily tornchallenge the vapid historical optimismrnbubbled forth by the left of his day,...

CORRESPONDENCErnLetter From Chicagornby Thomas RoeserrnThe World TurnedrnUpside DownrnA truly startling, topsy-turvy race is beingrnrun for governor of Illinois. U.S. RepresentativernGlenn Poshard, the Democrat,rnis embracing more conservative positionsrnon culture and social policy; IllinoisrnSecretary of State George Ryan, thernRepublican, is running away with muchrnof the Democratic base, including gayrightsrnsupporters. On trade, Poshard hasrnsupported a Buchananite economic nationalismrnand...