ORIGINS AND OUTCOMEnby Justus D. DoeneckenVIEWSnThe America First CommitteenTo the degree that it is remembered at all, the AmericanFirst Committee (AFC) has gone down in history asnan organization most suspect, at best composed of goodnpeople serving a bad cause, at worst riddled with consciousnagents of a Nazi transmission belt. During its heyday in thenyears 1940-1941,...

WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEENnby Wayne S. ColenThe America First Committee was part of democracy innaction during one of the most terrifying times innhuman history. It was the leading pressure group appealingnfor mass support in opposition to involvement in World WarnII before Pearl Harbor.nWhen America First saw the light of day in Septembern1940, Poland, Denmark, Norway,...

THE ANTI-WAR WARRIORSnby Ruth Sarles BenedictnBack in 1941 some members of the Senate and Housentook an unpopular route to serve their country, theirnbeliefs, and their priorities in a cause that was hopeless.nMany of them were not reelected.nThey were the men (no woman of the few then innCongress stands out) who fought against the United States’nentry...

REDSKINS AND PALEFACESnby Leonard P. LiggionThe America First Committee emerged nationwide innthe summer of 1940 from the initial efforts of GeraldnFord, Potter Stewart, and other Yale Law School students,nseconded by law professor Edwin Borchard. It evolved amidnthe American political cataclysm following Franklin Roosevelt’snlandslide election to a second term in November 1936.nThe mandate to institute a...

Big Little House in American LiteraturenF . Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler wrote, “is ansubject no one has a right to mess up. Nothing but thenbest will do for him”; and that is how I feel about LauranIngalls Wilder, who deserves to be ranked with Fitzgeraldnand Hemingway, Twain and O’Connor and Dickinson asnone of the geniuses...

^..O^^-^-Vf-iiii^nInscribing the American FrontiernIn August 1990, George Bush announced that Americanwas “drawing a line in the sand” of the Saudi Arabianndesert. With those words, the President recalled a list ofnindividuals reaching back to Christopher Columbus whonhave defined “America” by the act, whether physical ornverbal, of inscribing the American land. Definition is, byncommon understanding, a verbal...

VIEWSn/ -Sx-cM^’r-r^ n/••• ^ < ^ ^ ^ h ‘ ‘ -‘?’ ‘ ^ ^ – ^n/’ I /t/’P’.^ /i*nj>- -iW4ii – J t’i’ ‘nConspicuous Benevolence andnthe Population BombnThe one certain thing about population control is thatnwe do not yet know how to achieve it. That needs a bitnof explaining. If human beings do absolutely...

A Nation of DavidsnPopulation Control and the Environmentnby Jacqueline R. Kasunn”. . . Ahaz . . . did not that which was right in the sight of thenLord . . . he . . . made his son to pass through the fire . . . he sacrificed andnburnt incense in the high places, and...

The New Wealth of NationsnIhave just returned from a trip around the world; a tripnwhere among other things I explored why certain nationsnsucceed brilliantly and other nations stumble along innpoverty with marginal economies.nIn previous travels to South America, I accepted thenstandard south-of-the-border excuse that its poverty andnproblems were caused by “Yankee Imperialism.” It soundednlogical and...

VIEWSnThe Terror of the ObviousnThere is a painting on my wall that fascinates me.nThat is partly because it is beautiful, partly because ofnthe story it tells. It is a large Dutch oil of 1658 by Hendriknvan Vliet, better known for his church interiors, and it showsntwo men solemnly seated at a dark table lit only...

Can Humanity Forget What It Knows?nCivilization hangs suspended, from generation to generation,nby the gossamer strand of memory. If only onencohort of mothers and fathers fails to convey to its childrennwhat it has learned from its parents, then the great chain ofnlearning and wisdom snaps. If the guardians of humannknowledge stumble only one time, in their...

The Private Worlds of the MindnOn the morning of July 13, 1985, as I noted in mynjournal, I woke with an exceptionally clear recollectionnof a dream. In it my wife, Elizabeth, and I were in anhigh-ceilinged Victorian room with brown walls fashioned ofnrotating metallic discs. From there, we moved outside ontonNew York City’s Park Avenue,...

Writing Offbeat WesternsnThe Western novel has always been hedged about withnmore conventions than any other category, with thenpossible exception of women’s romances. I’ve often puzzlednabout why that is so, and even after years of thinking aboutnit, I don’t have any good answers. I know that some of it hasnto do with the fact that the...

The Impact of Immigration onnHispanic-AmericansnAs American migrant workers took to the fields in thenfirst harvest season after the passage of the ImmigrationnReform and Control Act of 1986 (the sweeping new federalnlaw to control illegal immigration), Herminio Mufioz, ansixty-five-year-old Mexican-American from Progreso, Texas,ntold the Dallas Times Herald: “We think there is going to bena lot more...

All in all, why did I come to this nightmarish New York?nTo fill my pockets with dollars, and then to go back andnlive as a money-changer? No. You know that the answer isnno. Out of curiosity? Yes. . . . Somehow yes. But most of allnout of anxiety. Does this legendary America the fertile, thenemotional,...

VIEWSnJack and Jill, or Why I Am Not a ConservativenHe who has seen the present has seen everything, saidnMarcus Aurelius, and this is why the floor of my studynis made concave by the aggregate weight of all the newspapersnand magazines I have acquired since moving tonCambridge: I simply cannot bring myself to throw away ansingle...

Gorbachev and the MarketnNo doubt Gorbachev has been entirely misunderstoodnin the West, and continues to be. The primary myth isnthat glasnost and perestroika represented fundamentalnchange from the Soviet past. They did not establishnWestern-style economic or political freedom, as the medianled Americans to believe. Instead, each was designed ton”improve and perfect” the workings of socialism. “I’ve...

William James was much concerned about “faithtendencies,”nwhich he defined as “extremely activenpsychological forces, constantly outstripping evidence.” ThenGorbachev era fully confirms his apprehensions. Theneminent psychologist even constructed a seven-rung “faithladder”:n1. There is nothing absurd in a certain view of thenworid being true, nothing self-contradictory;n2. It might have been true under certain conditions;n3. It may be true,...

VIEWSnBeautiful LosersnThe Failure of American Conservatismnby Samuel FrancisnWhen T.S. Eliot said that there are no lost causesnbecause there are no won causes, he probably wasnnot thinking of American conservatism. Nearly sixty yearsnafter the New Deal, the American right is no closer tonchallenging its fundamental premises and machinery thannwhen Old Rubberlegs first started priming the pump...

The Goading of AmericanFisher Ames is the Founding Father who draws a blank.nFew people today have heard of him, yet he wrote thenfinal version of the First Amendment, and his speech onnJay’s Treaty, delivered when he was the leader of thenFederalists in the First Congress, was called the finestnexample of American oratory by Daniel Webster...

VIEWSnEurope Is Not What It SeemsnIt would be logical for me to say that, returning to thenUnited States after another four months this summer andnfall in various countries of Europe, east and west, I found angreat many misconceptions about the continent in Americannmedia and public opinion. Yet it would not be fair tonlimit myself to...

Nick at Nite, TV, and YounEvery night, in prime time, a changeling can enter yournliving room, an inhuman creature secretly usurping anhuman’s place. It’s an unnatural presence, an electronicnphantom with vast and secret motivations; but its presence isnso enjoyable and comforting, as well as so familiar (it hastensnto assure you), that you really don’t mind...

The ‘Bottom Line’ as American Mythnand Metaphornby Irving Louis Horowitz and Mary E. CurtisnThe question, “What is the bottom line?” has enterednthe lexicon of business as a near metaphysical given. Itnis so frequently applied to events calling for tough decisionmakingnthat it seems advisable to take a closer look at itsnmeaning. The phrase signals a no-nonsense...

VIEWSnWith the deaths of Robert Penn Warren and Walker Percynthe specter of the star system is loose again in the land.n”Who will be their successors? Who will pick up theirnmantle?” It’s a plaintive cry, predictable but genuine,nlargely journalistic and academic—a spume from the wavenof canon-making — thinned by its basis in literary politics. Itnisn’t cast...

American society is in trouble, and not only because ourntraditional values and institutions are under siege. Thennuclear family is crumbling as a result of governmentnpolicies that are ruthless when they are not mindless. Ournonce great cities have reverted to a state of nature, in whichnthe innocent are terrorized by hordes of savages who are notnand...

The Process of RatificationnEven as we, in our own time, go about revising, ornrefusing to revise, our fundamental law, so did ournFathers in the beginning vote to put such law in its place:nthat is, one state at a time, reflecting, after vigorous dispute,n13 different majorities, some of them very belated — andnvery reluctant. All of...

A Global Village or the Rights of the Peoples?nThe great conflicts of the future will no longer pit leftnagainst right, or East against West, but the forces ofnnationalism and regionalism against the credo of universalndemocracy. The lofty ideal of the global village seems to benstumbling over the renewed rise of East European separatism,nwhose aftershocks may...

A Doctor in Spite of HimselfnThe Strange Career of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s DissertationnOn December 3, 1989, the London Telegraph includedna piece of academic news from the United States:n”Researchers in his native Georgia must soon decidenwhether to reveal that the late Dr. Martin Luther King,nmurdered in 1968, was — in addihon to his other humannfailings...

My friend Dr. Bob grew up in a coal town callednPackard in eastern Kentucky, a place that wasnabandoned years ago. All that is left these days is kudzungrowing over old foundations. He’s a neurosurgeon innLouisville now, and an amateur Kentucky historian, and mynfavorite tale of his is about the blue Fugetts and the blindnFugetts. The...

GOOD NEWS BLUESnby George GarrettnWhat I started to say, my original impulse, was wrong.nNot all wrong, but, anyway, riddled with error andninconsistency. I started to say this: that in many ways,nspeaking (as we one and all must) from my own limitednangle, my assigned point of view, the hmes we seem to be innand likely to...

VIEWSnThe Future of American Nationalismnby Clyde Wilsonn”All the evidence shows that differentiation which is not fragmentation is ansource of strength. But such differentiation is possible only if there is a centerntoward which the parts look for their meaning and validation.”n— Richard M. WeavernOne of the most interesting of many superb memoirs ofnthe American Civil War...

Tragedy, Comedy, and Modern Timesne&B»n<^’:•–‘?*T^nThis essay grew out of a request that I conduct a reprisenof “The Bull’s Eye of Disaster,” my wrap-up conclusionsnon the Vietnam War that appeared in the August 1989nChronicles, in light of what’s happened in the post-ColdnWar world since that essay appeared. I was thus thrust ontonthe stage of modern times,...

VIEWSnRestoring Family Autonomy in EducationnMark Twain once confided that he received publicnschooling as a child but never let it interfere with hisneducation. Millions today are not so fortunate; for theirneducation is being interfered with. The full extent of thenproblem came to light in 1983 in four major nationalnstudies. (The four reports were as follows: A...

/n-f i ‘1.’. 0^nFA. Hayek, in The Fatal Conceit: The Errors ofnSocialism, offers us one insight into the nature ofnfreedom and morality. Hayek argues that the major woddnreligions have succeeded and endured because they reinforcenthe weak and imperfect points of human nature.nHayek believes that civilization is based on the family and onnprivate property, institutions that...

VIEWSnAnother Part of the ForestnJust after receiving an invitation from the editor ofnChronicles to write about the college humanities curriculum,nI received a letter from a friend and ally in educationnreform. It expressed alarm that “I had gone over to the othernside” — an opinion that started, according to his letter, whennI declined to label myself...

Academics, Therapists, and thenGerman ConnectionnFor several years now a heated debate has been going onnover Western civilization and humanities requirementsnat some distinguished universities, most notably Stanford.nThe debate has brought up the question of a justification —nor lack thereof—for forcing students into a sequence ofncourses devoted exclusively to Western thought. It has beennargued, correctly, that thinkers...

The Teaching of Humanities and Other Trivian^ ^ T T umanities” is Western society’s name for thenJL JL academic expression of its fundamental values.nThere are other branches of learning — medicine, law,nengineering, and business, all of which benefit from thenhumanities — but only the “liberal arts” reflect a society’snsoul, central beliefs, highest aspirations, and ultimately...

VIEWSnThe New EnvironmentalismnMore change has occurred in the environmental movementnduring the past ten years than in its entirenprevious history. Its thrust has become less ideological andnmore pragmatic, less New Age and more scientific. It isnincreasingly grounded in the databases of atmosphericnscience and the genetic models of conservation biology.nThe practice of conservation in particular is now...

If asked to state the goal of the environmental movement,na participant in it would probably say something like: “tonpromote a sustainable relationship between human beingsnand nature.”nHow could one possibly object to such a formulation? Yetnhidden in it is a set of assumptions that may paradoxically lienat the root of our present environmental crisis.nThere is a...

VIEWSnThe Pros and Cons of ImmigrationnJACOB NEUSNERnGraduate Research Professor of Humanitiesnand Religious Studies,nUniversity of South FloridanMartin Buber Professor of Judaic Studies,nUniversity of FrankfurtnImmigration nourishes America, affirming the power of itsnnational ideal: a society capable of remaking the entirenworld in the image of humanity in democracy. No countrynin the world other than this distant magnet of...

Still the Coloniesnby Katherine DaltonnSince the days when Tom Paine set himself up as chiefnpropagandist for the emerging American colonies thenUnited States has been subject to invasion by Britishnjournalists. They come for a variety of reasons. Tired of taxncollecting in England, Tom Paine came to start anew, and ifndoing so involved the common sense of...

The Intransigent UninvitednToday the United States takes in annually more thanntwice as many immigrants as all other countries in thenworld put together. Many Asian countries permit no immigrationnat all, and openly despise foreigners. The top U.S.immigrantnexporter last year, Mexico (with 95,039), is also anvigorous deporter, sending back an average of 150 CentralnAmerican illegals a month,...

VIEWSnArt Is Always Political When the GovernmentnStarts Giving Grantsnby George Garrettn”In the background of the entire tedious debate over thenNEA, the First Amendment has loomed, misunderstood andnabused as usual, claimed by some as justification for theirnright to express a preference for causing pain to othersnduring the sex act and asserted by others as the basis...

The New Class ControversynThe recent successes of the American right depend, innpart, on its ability to deflect lower-middle-class resentmentnfrom the rich to a parasitic “new class” of professionalnproblem-solvers and moral relativists. In 1975, WilliamnRusher of the National Review referred to the emergence ofna “verbalist” elite, “neither businessmen nor manufacturers,nblue-collar workers or farmers,” as the “great...

Want To Reform Public Education?nBy now it should be obvious that “education reform” is anfraud. Its primary goal has not been to rescue childrennfrom public school malpractice, but to rescue the schoolsnfrom angry parents and taxpayers.nThe 1980’s saw per-pupil spending climb by aboutnone-third beyond inflation, almost entirely for doing more ofnthe same rather than for...

VIEWSnForeign Policy for the Post-Cold War WorldnNineteen eighty-nine was a year of great joy for lovers ofnfreedom everywhere. For it was the “revolutionary”nyear in which totalitarian communism, throughout EasternnEurope and perhaps even in the Soviet Union itself,nsuddenly collapsed like a house of cards. Many of ournpundits, equating complexity and permanent quasi-gloomnwith profundity, sternly warned us...

After eight years in power, conservatives are down in thenmouth. The right feels as out in the cold as it wasnduring the wilderness period, fifteen years ago; and this timenit does not even have much of a communist menace to fallnback upon.nEstablishment Republicanism, as personified by GeorgenBush, is in the saddle leading the nation under...

Leviathan’s ChildrennThe Family Policy of Sweden . . . and the U.S. ArmynWashington apparatchiks have spent the last twondecades in a frustrating search for a theme that couldncarry the sagging American welfare state. There are signsnnow that they have finally identified a, two-headed creaturenslouching toward Bethlehem-on-the-Potomac to be born:n”families” and “children.” Jimmy Carter had a...

As I read the announcement and noted with admirationnthose receiving The Ingersoll Prizes, I can say in allnhumility that it never entered my head during the pastnseveral years that I might someday be so honored, and fornthat I thank you. I thank you also for the opportunity tonmake the following brief remarks to an important...

Atext, or an epigraph, for what I am going to say: somenlines from John Ciardi’s poem about the Birdman ofnAlcatraz who was, among other things, a trickster of sorts.nThese words are from Ciardi’s poem “Snickering in Solitary”:nIn every life sentencensome days are better thannothers; even, sometimes,nbetter than being free.nAnd one other, the basic ethical and...