Government, Politics, and Citizen Involvement; Gary Brazier

The technical quality of the following program is well below our usual broadcast standards. We feel however that its content merits broadcast. Good evening and welcome to the third in a series of 16 lectures on government politics and citizen involvement here by recording to introduce this evening's speaker is Richard Olson research associate Bureau of Public Affairs Boston College. Mr. Olson. Good evening ladies and gentleman. And welcome to the third in a series of lectures entitled government politics and citizen involvement. The topic for this evening's lecture is political party structure functions and importance. Our guest lecturer this evening is Dr. Gary Frazier. Dr. Brazier is an assistant professor of political science at Boston College. He's currently on leave of absence while serving is indeed to Mayor John Collins. Under a grant from the National Center for Education and politics. Dr. Brazier. Has received his degree in

Political Science from the University of Minnesota. He has taught at Western Reserve University. He finally did it as a consultant to the Cleveland Metropolitan Services Commission and to the Ohio legislative Service Commission. Currently he is a consultant to the Massachusetts legislative Research Bureau. Is also the author of many articles dealing with state and local politics. Is with a great deal of pleasure that I present to you Dr. Gary Frazier. Thank you Mr. Olson. A few moments ago out in the hallway I was asked if there's anything I'd like to have excised from there. You know I characterize it brief introduction or if there were any alterations that ought to be made in it. And I freely said no to both because I wanted the opportunity at the outset to observe that I was born and reared for the large part.

You shouldn't take it the way that can be taken. In the state of Minnesota. And I have lived in a number of other states sometimes as their guest sometimes as a guest of Sam. But the point is I was born in Minnesota know something about its political institutions its political system. I have been a resident of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for something over five years and I don't know a great deal about its political institutions and its political system but I hasten to add that I was and continue to be an avid reader of Theodore aged white. The name will ring a bell I'm sure to many of you. He's made many contributions to American literature and I mean that in the kindest sense possible for his story of the election of 1960 is more than a chronicle it is a piece of American literature. That is neither here nor there and just gilding the lily now with Mr. White what I want to come to is the observation that in that particular Chronicle in that piece of literature Mr. Wright makes the observation that there are some

states that stand out. As having excellent political institutions and excellent political systems. Contrariwise there are those that also stand out that are not so well noted for the peculiar virtues negatively but there are some states that are characterized as having abominably bad political systems and political institutions. The very fact that I mention Minnesota and Massachusetts in the same breath should lead you to the inevitable conclusion. More about that later. I think generally. I'd take as the theme what has been gratuitously offered to you as the reason for the for gathering. A new concept in public affairs. Read the announcement. Politics government and citizen involvement. A series of lectures devoted to providing the interested citizen with the knowledge and skills he will need in order to participate. More actively and effectively in public affairs. It is my own

qualified assertion to you how that you will not participate in public affairs at all. To say nothing about effectively. Unless you do it through the medium of the instrument up political parties. And I hope consciously. Political parties are absolutely imperative and indispensable. You can quarrel with the manner in which certain individuals manipulate them. You can take issue with the manner in which the political institution has what the political process but it seems to me that you are not indeed entitled to take issue with the charge that political parties can be dispensed with they cannot. They are the means by which we translate there's no more for us this nebulous limit this ineffable. Desire on the part of those of us who are political animals to translate our rails and our interests our wants into public action. If that promise will stand and I hope that there will be few among you who will contest

it I'm prepared to take the next logical reasonable step. The political party. Will mean to the political institutions only what the individual to identify with the party and give it shape. Well leave it to me. Well bring it to me. Like every other institution like every other organ of society and of social control. It will be as effective as the energies and the talents of the individuals who identify with it and manipulate political powers provide the instrument their political parties rather provide the instruments or the means by which this political power is manipulated is applied is actually sized because in these exercises we find a means to accomplishment the weans to and the means to goals. And this is precisely what is implied. What is implicit is the assertion that we are political animals and I'm sure that this is a notion that has been lost by you in the past.

I can't help but wonder how my predecessors addressed themselves at all to the tremendous tasks of explaining the citizen of the democracy and the Constitution and the citizen within the very brief two hours allotted to respectively. Matter of fact the thought rather staggers me that the subject of political parties can be addressed rationally in that time. I'm going to make an identification now with political parties and the public interest for I see it there. And I think very difficult. I think it is very difficult to deny that existence or to refute it. We use political power in the accomplishment of human political goals. We have made the affirmation we made the determination and then the affirmation that society is going to go in this direction at this speed to accomplish this program for the amelioration of these ills or the satisfaction of these wants. We use political power to reward or we use the threat of

withholding political power as a sanction. And I think every last one of us has been and must be prepared to concede that individually for one reason or another good bad or indifferent we are respectively bundles of interest. We have a very difficult time apportioning them segregating them distinguishing them for one reason or another. They would be an appropriate time now to suggest to you that some of the bases and some of the distinctions by which we do attempt to take apart the political process may or may not be significant or meaningful but they will at least be familiar to you. Why do people respond as they do to the pressure of political question. They do because they live where they live because they come from the environment that they come from because they are the let out of the lineage of a peculiar racial stock or of peculiar national origins or because they are think God one of two sexes.

I don't preclude the possibility of some individuals. Well that thought better left. I'm suggesting to you that one of the important ingredients in the political process is an identification of interest with others of like curry. And when you appreciate that when you can find in your midst perhaps not to come from a close in some instances if you happen to be of the Democratic persuasion living in a preponderantly Republican town or Perish forbid that you are Republican the preponderantly Democratic city. Maybe you don't find that comfort of proximity of similar interest but at least you identify with it. And it is that a den of occasion of interest that is impelled people in the past which is I'm telling people of the present and which will continue to impel people in the future to band together for the common advantage they see in the promotion of that interest. Now very crassly and boldly put. Political parties provide the instruments by which those agglomerated individual interests can

pass respectably for the public interest. One of the most difficult challenges we have is the identification of something we can call the public interest or the general welfare or the common weal. I'm going to presume that one or all of those subjects was touched upon previously if not in the last lectures from the one preceding the legitimate object objective of any political organization at least within the context in the construct of the American Constitution is the pursuit of and the presumed accomplishment to me if actuation of the public interest. But I'm suggesting to you that the intensely political question is of great importance here. The determination of what is the public interest. It is the political party that makes the respectable identification of individual interests with a respectable group interest. The very next logical reasonable step is to provide the rationalization the

formulation of those glum aerated individual interests in something that could be passed or which will be accepted as the credo. The principles by which these individuals respectably move into the public interest field in the general welfare feel that instrument very obviously is the party platform. We can spend a great deal of time on that alone. It might serve our purpose to take a little side road into that particular area at this time. Party platforms are very free and frequently the objects of scorn. Very frequently scoffed at as being something to run on and not to stand on as more or less. Coaxing teasing devices to win people to the support of candidates who are presumably espousing the principles

of the organization wrapped up in its platform. I doubt very seriously if more than a mere corporal's guard among us and even a lesser proportion among the public at large has had the inclination or has taken the time ever to look at a political party platform. I mean to sit down and look at it from beginning to end from preamble to postscript. You might have been reasonably content to read what some journalist thought the political platform contained. Or you might have listened to it encapsulated 20 second review by some radio broadcaster. But I doubt very seriously if the number among us is very large who has had the occasion or the information to examine a political party platform. And yet paradoxically there are very few among us who cannot say with some conviction that we can distinguish Democratic from Republican principles. Until we ask you to specify until we ask you to explain how it can

be that there could be such diverse types as x and y in the Republican Party and you would be in the Democratic Party I might as well give you names. There lurking there just begging for expression. How can there be such diverse types as a Jacob Javits and a John Tower. They are one of a handful a mere handful of people in a very obviously spectacular setting the United States Senate. They are outnumbered in partisan strength two to one by their adversaries on the Democratic side. If you get to Washington take a look at that rather peculiar distribution of seats in the United States Senate this session. It certainly does a distortion to the idea of the middle Why I'll have to get 68 seats on one side.

If you have a senator from the state of New York a Republican and proud of it and not about to abandon the principles of the Republican Party as he sees them. In the same vein the United States senator from the state of Texas who is not prepared to abandon the Republican Party or its principles as he sees. Of course the illustrations really go on and on and on and on. How many times have individuals in positions of public prominence really not the party of their birth so to speak or the party of their early allegiance and spectacularly stepped across that invisible line distinguishing Republicans from Democrats and said I've had enough. I'm no longer comfortable in this house. The principles which I hold dear are to be found in the other party. Are you going to offer me the case of Strom Thurmond.

Wayne Morse. Well you might unless I ask you to probe deeply into the reasons the impelling reasons that cause those individuals to leave those parties of early allegiance and we could do the same thing with other spectacular and prominent people in American public life. The late Joseph Raymond McCarthy I hasten to add began his political wars as a Democrat. I think you all know how we ended. And Ray Wallace began his political life as a Republican. I think you know where he stands. Well maybe you don't but Henry Wallace has been somewhat over the political spectrum to a greater extent than any of the other figures that I've mentioned. He went from the Republican face to the Democratic face to a face of Independence which passed for progressivism as he saw it. Why do people do that.

Because they are looking for identification with Principal with purpose with interest. I wouldn't say for a moment that that's the whole explanation particularly in view of the fact that I've cited you specific illustrations of specific personalities. What I'd like to have you reflect on of course is that the party platform has some meaning and some significance to great numbers of people. Several years ago 15 as a matter of fact the professional association to which I belong to the American Political Science Association had constituted a committee on the political party and after several months of rather intensive and serious investigation to which it was addressing its energy and its attention on the question of a more responsible two party system it came to the conclusion that there were many many flaws and many many irregularities in the American Bharti process which could be remedied by a further attention to the political parties one of which remedies was

to improve the statement on the radio or a principle. To make the platform of the party separate and distinguishable from the platform of the natural adversary. But we come back you know into the mainstream with this. We have distinctions and differences in principles that take the form of party statements or party platforms planks and party platforms because the party itself in the American context is is very frequently if indeed not usually almost always confronted with and opponent of nearly equal magnitude. It is a common historical fact that the American political process has put great emphasis and great faith on the two party system and not the multi-party system. I have purposely and consciously avoided anything that might be alluded to as an hysterical

historical narrative of the party histories or the growth of parties in the United States. I'm reasonably confident that you all have an essential knowledge of that beginning with the declared and avowed intention on the part of those individuals who fashioned the principles under which we are operating. Change To be sure of their applicability and very frequent instances. More recently but the Constitution of the United States I'm reasonably confident you all are aware makes no mention of the party. It is an extra legal institution not an illegal institution it's an extra legal institution and that constitutional sense. I think you will also appreciate that the early history of this country demonstrated that the identification of interest and the content of the contest particularly in the in the great sphere between those who had been possessed and were constantly confronted with the threat of the jeopardy of having that with their withdrawn or taken from them by those who did not possess precipitated the development of factional alignments

in which the contest for political power became uppermost. Out of that very kind of factionalism which George Washington decried and about which James Madison wrote the political party grew from its very rudimentary beginnings in the contest between Federalists and anti federalists or in the. Spirit of Charles Beard economic interpretations of these events and of these of this period the war between the propertied and the property the economic advantage in the economically this is just I would submit to you that that kind of contest is just as meaningful today to us as it was then. But we have many many many more ramifications and many many more issues about which and upon which people have divided but they have divided to come together under the banners of two major parties. I think it's justifiable to suggest that this is

almost a peculiarly American contribution to the subject of politics. We have not India logically based any ideologically splintered parties in the United States that are so frequently common in the Old World. This makes necessary a coalition a coming together of diverse interests so that there can be effective organization so that the political prizes can be won the political prizes. Ladies and gentlemen our public office because it is through public office that public and political power is exercised legitimately. You have to get the office before you can have the legitimate jurisdiction to impose will. Backed up with the sanction of the state. There is another social institution that has that authority that has that power. Not the magnitude. It varies. From the pedestrian the prosaic the petty little irritations that you may suffer hopefully in the

not too distant future. If you disobey the jaywalking ordinances and I am hoping against hope that that kind of ordinance will get some effective enforcement in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and even more particularly in the city of Boston. This is public policy. How it ever became a matter of of public law. I marvel at even the peculiar character of political independence social independence and independence of every other kind and breed among people who are residents here. But the fact remains you can be proceeded against for having violated the public policy of crossing a public way at a point that was not set out for that crossing. The other extreme I needn't mention to you at all is back in the news again tonight. The state of all US social organizations enjoys the exclusive authority to do to strip you not simply your property. Or of

your liberty but of your life. Now I would submit to you that somewhere between these and I hope you'll charitably concede to me that they can be called polar extremes. There are a whole range of questions of interest that awaken the attention of members of the body politic and about which there can be political contest and they do involve such things as the relationship between labor and management. And I'm confident you can appreciate the Holmes host of questions that are raised in this field. The determination of the public policy of a minimum wage maximum hours working conditions Workmen's Comp.. You know whole host of other things the very intimate concerts of individuals as individual personalities seeking questing for some kind of happiness and some kind of security and hoping they're going to find it in the married state.

Find that they are up against Once again a manifestation of public interest and public policy. The relationship of the sexes is very minute regulated by the public. I'm going to pause just long enough to say to you illustrations Lest you think I'm pulling these out of the air. There have been individuals in the United States who have been pilloried not literally but figuratively by the majority of the individuals exercising their political power to deny those who have a legitimate claim to opposition to a post in the public life where they can participate in the councils and the application of that power. The residents of the great state of Utah were denied admission to the union until and unless they constitutionally proscribe matrimonial relationships that denied the monopolistic right of monogamy. A single individual from the state of Utah was denied his seat in the Congress of the

United States because it was felt that he did not give his undivided attention to the superiority of that monogamy. Another individual in the United States was denied his seat in the Congress of the United States because he had appeared to a socialist philosophy and a socialist doctrine and a membership in the Socialist Party. I will assert again having possession of public office makes possible the application of the utilization of public power which power has to be conceded to be the means to the goal to the ends to the objectives and very frequently they take the form of statute although they need not. This issue of partisanship however is what should claim our attention at this particular juncture. I think we're all well aware of the fact that we have partisan contests for the presidency and the vice presidency. The

membership in the house in the Senate in the Congress of the United States and in the great proponent majority of the several states in the union we have a partisan contest for representation in the legislative assemblies there. There are two states of the 50 that do not provide for partisan election of their legislative members. But the great majority have made that provision. I think we're also prepared to accept the proposition that in many municipal contests there are partisan contests but now we know the peculiar way in the only place in the American political structure do we find a positive attention or positive or an affirmative thought given to the negation of what I've been talking about for the last few minutes. The idea of non partisanship. Let me emphasize by repetition. The theme I will take and accept as properly stated in the concept of public affairs for active and effective participation in those

affairs through partisanship. Now we're faced with a situation where we have to appreciate that in the governance of local communities it has been the thought legally and legitimately expressed in charters and in state statutes that individuals need not agglomerate around the banners of parties that they can contest for those public offices and can wield that political power on a non partisan basis. It's true. But no I think what are telling and meaningful distinctions. The kinds of questions left for resolution in municipal governments are not the kind that usually or frequently excite or incite. They are relatively speaking pedestrians. What are the concerns of the cities in the larger cities those of a quarter of a million or more are to be more comfortable if I can make my dividing line at a half million or more.

The presence of political considerations is everywhere to be observed even though there are not roosters and stars or other evidences of party identification on the ballot. We know the personalities and the figures who are prominent in politics and we identify them with party. A little aside the fiction of nonpartisanship has been very frequently associated with the selection of judges. You must appreciate of course that in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts while you are not unique. Well forgive me pronoun is wrong while we are not unique. We are a little bit unusual in that we select judges by the appointee of means rather than by popular election. That is not the rule in American politics. Most American state judges are elected in exactly the same manner that most governors and state legislators are

elected. Why haven't we been concerned about the partisan composition of our judiciary. Look at the record of the last three American presidents. Beginning in this reverse order. Presidents Kennedy Eisenhower and Truman. And the opportunities presented to them to staff the federal judiciary. Strangely but singularly elected to fill the vacancies 95 and 96 percent of the time with partisans of their own stripe. That meaningful. I think it very well may be reflect with me for just a few moments about the judgments that have been made about the Supreme Court of the United States in the last 10 years. The most frequent and the most damning criticism in the eyes of the critics at least of the courts in

the period from 1954 to 1957 was that it had usurped legislative powers that it was making policy. I say Tommy rot had those powers all along. It just so happened to utilize them in 1954 in a manner that was inconsistent with the majority sentiments of a rather appreciable segment of our country. And that brings me back to the proposition once again of the techniques or the means or the reasons. That political parties tend to win that appearance. And on what basis I've suggested to you in the past there may be some correlation between political parties and the economic enterprises of the endeavors in which an individual or a group of individuals is associated very grandly put. I'm sure you've heard this observation that the Republican Party is the party of Wall Street the Democratic Party is the party of Main Street. A great deal too of course.

Oh I strike that as a very bad oversimplification. But it makes the point that I wish to make here. To me to make for you to hear that there is a meaningful distinction in the minds of many people. There is a conscious identification or an attraction to one party or the other because there is a sense a realisation that the interest of the individual I have has is going to get greater protection or enhancement or espousal from this party than from the other. You do not rule out the possibility of course of. Complete contradictions. Yes it's there again historically you can find good reasons for asserting that certain parties win favor out of certain sections because of peculiar policies associated or identified with those parties over the past. We are accustomed to talking about the solid Democratic South.

We can with considerable justification talk about the solid Republican New England area northern New England area until recent times. We can talk about the solid Republican character of the great plains until recent times. Historically there has been a wedding or a marriage between the Eastern financial interests and the agrarian interests of the Middle West. One of the contributions perhaps those of you of different persuasion might say one of the criticisms that should legitimately be directed to Franklin Delano Roosevelt was that he was successful in splitting that marriage asunder and he fashioned a coalition for the Democratic Party that has persisted more or less unbroken with the Eisenhower abberation accepted down to the present time. There are sectional differences but I submit to you that they may be sectional differences that go to economic roots. I won't make the same observation to you

about the next subject. The distinction that we are want to draw between Democrats and Republicans on the basis of race. Where you're not absolutely amazed if indeed not appalled to discover subsequent to November of 1964 in after the fact polling that some 95 or 96 percent of the negroes who went to the polls presumably gave their support to the victorious candidate. Or to put it more negatively only four or five percent of those spectacularly visible members of our community chose to identify with the candidate and the spokesman for the other major party. Can you begin to appreciate then the kind of soul searching that has gone on in the Republican Party since November of 1964 with respect to the kind of attraction the kind of allure that has to offer the voting public. Can you

appreciate why a governor from the Rocky Mountain West has to say the Republican Party has to look to its laurels it must cultivate the Negro vote. How many negroes do you think you're going to find in the Rocky Mountain West. It wouldn't constitute a corporal's guard. I say that only because there are distinguishable elements and components in our community. There are groups in our community in our society. To which and for which political concern is extended and felt those individuals who have risen in party councils are great believers in group basis of politics. They listen this is Jewishly and avidly to an individual who purports to be a leader because they got the idea that the leader can deliver the vote. A Labor leader can deliver the votes of labor in spite of the fact that the record

is replete with instances where he hasn't been able to do it. But it's a part of the American political mythology. There are all kinds of reasons that people who are in the cup party councils who have risen from the ranks in the organization will pay attention to the composition and the formation of groups because they identify and associate those groups with interests. It is I suggested to you a few moments ago almost peculiar almost unique in the Western world at least in the American political system. To find our extreme reliance upon the two party system it has been criticized as the differences between Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee are empty wine bottles distinguishable only by the distinctions in labels. This is a gross exaggeration. It's an unfair criticism. There are many similarities between individuals and political parties of opposite persuasion

Yes but on the record on the whole it over a period of time there are meaningful distinctions on certain spectacular questions of public interest. Much of the criticism has been directed in the recent past to the councils within the Republican Party. Is it too frequently seized upon emulation or attempted emulation. Surely imitation you've heard the charge. He's a me too er or he's addicted to me too ism in my particular philosophy. A member of a party in opposition on the outside has a perfect right to look to the record fashion by the party on the inside and the appeals that have made to the voter for support and say what did it. If you've got a saleable commodity let me in on it. Nothing succeeds like success. I don't

take serious exception to the parties imitating or emulating or attempting attempting to emulate. I think it happens to be one of the soundest defenses we have in this American political system that we can make this transfer of political orientation from one major party to the other without serious ruptures. If we're looking for reasons the rationale for the political party one of the best we can find is that it provides the means by which this power can be transferred without rupture. And without violence I hesitate to suggest to you alternatives to it. I don't think they're very realistic. The political party is here. I return to the observation which I started. It is here and it is the vehicle it's the medium by which individual interest is going to find satisfactory expression. But I

am of the strong political and personal persuasion then individual in politics is going to be inundated by the group politics. And if you wish to become effective if you wish to be a participant in the political process with some hopes of having your councils heard and your interests protected and enhanced. You could do no worse. As a matter of fact you could do no better than to identify with a political organisation and stay with it. Political parties are based in localities we've been talking grandly about the Democratic Party the Republican Party nationally. Those parties respectively on the national scene. Are coalitions of parties that have their roots in their bases in the states and local communities. And it doesn't surprise me a bit to find those national parties in their

quadrennial conventions having a deuce of a time agreeing on what kind of a civil rights plank they're going to incorporate in their platform or what kind of a plank they're going to incorporate with respect to labor management relations or what kind of a plank they're going to have with respect to any number of other things political and social importance because of the diversity and because of the disparity of the membership. That is a given with which I am prepared to work. Now let's come down to the very local area where individual participation can be had and can be made effective. Conditions change conditions differ from one community to another from one state to another. For the very simple reason that this is a matter that is within the province of the state for its determination. Election laws are matters of essentially state concern. Oh I can see do there are times when the national community gets concerned about this as it did in the very recent past with respect to such matters the poll

tax but grandly speaking it is a matter of state concern. For the organization of political parties and the means available for the political party to attempt to seek utilization of political power in EVERY STATE OF THE UNION the political party is predicated upon a very broad base in the precinct or in the ward or in the town if you wish to confine your attention to the New England area. The point here be that there is at least every two years more frequently for most people however it occurs only in the presidential year when their interests are quickened or awakened. That the individual can offer himself as a matter of fact can contest for an opportunity for a post in a political party organization. You're aware of the fact aren't you that you to be a Democrat today and Republican tomorrow and independent the day after that. And if your intonation is taking this direction you can become a vegetarian or a prohibitionist or a socialist or a Socialist Worker or something of that guy. Well the opportunities are not

inexhaustible they are legion. We don't ask for you to come in and show us your blood type or your lineage or even your education. We just ask you what your inclination you want to be a Democrat or Democrat you want to be a Republican your public. When do we deny individuals that option. When do we read people out of the party. An infinitesimally small number of times number of patients the most frequent means by which we treat to Mavericks is to deny them the opportunities of office. Deny them the opportunity to have seniority. What a tough step it must have been for Java for GE a strong third of the movie seen across the aisle is great demand was the retention of seniority.

It was awfully hard to become a Republican under those circumstances was relatively speaking comparatively speaking it was more difficult for Wayne Morse to sit in splendid isolation as the Independent Party member in the Senate of the United States in 1953 and on Friday afternoons when everybody else had gone home and there was that for this big Ottoman presiding officer listening to Wayne Morse making his reports of the independent party. For two years he sat in that kind of splendid isolation until he decided that he'd had enough of that and he was going to be a Democrat. Nobody kept him out. Nobody's going to keep you out of either the Republican or the Democratic parties. And I strongly urge you to give serious consideration to identification with it. Now then to that matter that I put on I don't know the question of independence and it's distinguishable from non partisanship. The question of independence an individual who will not

identify an individual who will not assert an individual who will not participate as a part of an organization but chooses to sit back and you know glorified rarified ageist way suggest that he is capable of making the proper distinctions and choosing always the best of the alternatives. I think a person who will adopt that attitude has a capacity for self-delusion that has not yet been blown. He is not participating in the political process to the extent that he could or should because he denies himself immediately a voice in the political process where it is much more meaningful and much more significant in the determination of who the candidate shall be questing for those public posts where that public power awaits utility utilization. It is the nominating process which the political party has virtually preempted with the acquiescence of the state. Admittedly there are

limitations upon that. We have seen through the fortunate exercise of judicial power how political parties are not entitled to deny individuals participation in the political process on the basis of color. The white primary is no more and it's a shame to America that it ever existed. But it is no more because political parties are not entitled under the color of law to say that an individual of a peculiar view is not entitled to vote as a member of that particular organization. I've taken what. I was making some observations about independence and the distinctions between independence and non partisanship nonpartisanship precludes the possibility of partisan contest. An individual who asserts political independence makes a conscious willful choice not to become a contestant in a

partisan sense. The opportunity is there the option is there. He chooses not to exercise it. In my own peculiar construct of values I would submit to you that that is a very faulty and shortsighted attitude to assume. The political party is there. It is the indispensable means the vehicle the medium by which political power is exercised through public office. If you have any identification if you have any interest at all and Lord knows you have many. You should be concerned about the manner of the manipulation of political power and the impact on those interests whether they be anomic or social or political or any other kind. It is through the political party the public that public power is translated into public policy and it is subsequently executed in your knee by public officers and it is subsequently reviewed in your name by judicial officers also. You give away a great deal

by not being willing to identify with the partisan aspects of the political process. You've been listening to Dr Gary brazier of Boston College and he spoke early last February on political parties their structure function and importance. Dr. Brazier was introduced on this recorded program by Richard Olson a research associate in public affairs at Boston College. His lectures on government politics and citizen involvement are sponsored by the Bureau of Public Affairs at Boston College in just not hill Massachusetts on next week's program. Charles L. A political editor of the editorial page of The Boston Globe will speak on the federal legislative process its operations and how it may be affected by the citizen. It'll.

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Were. The old. 0 0. 0. 0 0 0 0. Charles Mann conducted the Beethoven Leonor over tour number three. This is the

eastern educational radio network programs like the ones you have heard and will hear this evening cost money to produce lots of it. We must depend upon you our listening audience for two thirds of that money. Once you send your contribution this evening to WGBH Boston Oh twenty one thirty four this is WGBH FM eighty nine point seven mega cycles in Boston. Lord. Imo. A hundred. And nine. Hundred.

Charles Mensch conducted the Beethoven Leonor over tour number three. This is the eastern educational radio network. Programs like the ones you have heard and will hear this evening cost money to produce lots of it. We must depend upon you our listening audience for two thirds of that money. Once you send your contribution this evening to WGBH Boston oh 21 34 This is WGBH FM eighty nine point seven motorcycles in Boston int. Welcome to folio this evening from the BBC. The story of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company. We present the Royal Shakespeare from London. Christopher Benning

introduces a programme about the annual festival of Stratford upon Avon and the company that has grown from it. I'll let you know that yet in all my do you only did you say that you're living it. Oh well you have taught me to be just enough that you can you tell us can that disdain you. That is because you tell coach but it is something that I love the ladies only you accepted and I would like to find it in my heart that I have not a heart but truly I love not an idea happens to women. They would have been troubled with the pernicious you tell I got in my cold blood. I've known him and for that. I know nothing. Master. Teacher.

In a scene from much ado about nothing. One of the most famous productions at the annual Shakespearean Festival at Stratford upon Avon. This festival has inspired many of those Stratford Ontario and Stratford Connecticut. In addition to presenting Shakespeare the company has a London for other productions and prizes some of the finest theatrical minds in Britain. In this program we will hear from these men what they think about productions what they're doing and what they hope to achieve. But how did it all begin. The first festival to be 69 when David got what he called a jubilee on the banks of the river a. Ring three days of celebrations held in pouring rain and one line from Shakespeare was head. And that was a misquotation. All the various

performances were given at Stratford. It wasn't until 1879 that the first permanent theater was open for occasional performances of Shakespeare. This was almost entirely due to the enterprise of Charles flower head of a local brewing dynasty which is watched of the destinies of the theatre. Ever since. The season was very short to begin with and it was not until Frank Benson talk of a that the festivals became an important feature of British theatrical life. Frank Benson was a fine actor and athlete and by the time he'd been at Stratford a few years he built up a strong company of actors and sportsmen. In 1919 W. bridges Adams was appointed as director. He imposed a unity and style unknown during Benson's days when he caused by hiring a good fast bow to play on the TVs but unlike Benson bridges Adams was not intended to appear in the plates. It was actually stipulated in the contract with the short

not myself act so much to be to have a company.