Perspectives; The American Liberal

and millions came through portals from the old world women hopes for freedom for equality and advancement and for secure constitutional government they found be on a spacious lab where such hoax cooked flour and institutions and many of those institutions want to compose one americans today would like to believe is a liberal society the

pay to play my name's charles franklin the silent era new york harbor seemed like a reasonable place to begin this reflection on american liberal of the statue of liberty of course is not belong to american liberalism a lot of that statue with a gif of the old world to the new testimony to the kinship between the two worlds and a recognition of what the united states was represented from its inception the united states was identified with a group of it is unmistakably of the last set of it is standing for the

liberation and emancipation of individual and for the reform and renewal of the human or state what is it to be a little bit uncertain broad hallmark by which people of a liberal outlook and the identified they tend to be tolerant about ideas to prefer to trust people rather than to discuss liberals have been convinced that the future belongs to them that the general flow of events is on their side has been particularly the case in the united states today liberals are in doubt about the future they look out at the complicated form of modern american society and that's iraq giant organization is dependent on a mysterious science and technology and they wonder if the ideal of a free and open society of educated and

responsible citizens and we realize in times like these and liberals looked out beyond the american shores as well as the new nation's emerging into power and equality with the west and they ask where the liberal ideals and make sense of these nations with their economic problems with the desperate urge for equality and for material progress of the best days of liberalism in orders liberalism represent an aspiration and outlook with every major survive but prevail let's try to get out there is with respect to this question by looking just a bit at episodes and liberal when the early settlers came here and established all the pound and colonies with new as part of their name and they did so not only to

indicate a second york or hampshire or england but rather a brand new york a new hampshire i knew a lot that was very much a liberal or another deliberate man from bondage to pass an effort to make them turn their minds and hope towards the possibilities of the future perhaps the first characteristic of liberalism is its conviction that men can take hold of their history and destiny and cut new and better path for themselves this is of course a major theme of american history american history began officially with the declaration of independence which among other things on the eagles and illusions of the past that experience of declaring independence has been lived and really throughout american history by generations of immigrants who have come here shaking off their tie their children i've

been very conscious of the paul of the new world and of the need for associations with the old folks the old ways the old culture and the grass the new a new order for the world as a legend on the seal of the president of the united states or liberal presidents have repeatedly restated one spoke of a new freedom another of the new deal and today we have a new frontier in addition to its emphasis on the new liberalism as the name implies spans also or dedication to liberty liberty of joyce overly of action limited to choose one's own style of life and the make one's own fortune this nation has not been the only place where this thing has attracted the passion and devotion and not like a

statue on this island doesn't signify an american monopoly on liberty so can see but levity was more easily established here or easily believed it because the united states for a large part of its history simply had plenty of space mr crawford the individual what might be called room for small churches for movement on the exercise of his ingenuity for advancement this was a physically open space balloon debris and of the ones i think said jefferson our governments were my mangy flea coat and this will be as long as they're shall be vacant land in any part of american when they get piled upon one another in large cities as in europe

they will become corrupt as in year another closely connected being in american liberalism has been the quest for equality the united states has had its classes of people who've enjoyed special privileges and lawyer explain their favorite social position by turning back to the lineage and antiquity of their family when americans as a group no more like a social deference to people for this reason or any other reason and they regularly rebelled against legal privileges be important to any selective group it is to be regretted said andrew jackson that the rich and powerful to rock and then the acts of government to their selfish purposes when there was undertaken graham titles and special privileges to make the rich richer and the potent more power beyond the members of society have a right to complain of the injustice of their government but in

dealing with special privileges and in trying to eliminate the centralization of power it's good to remember that there have been no entrenched middle classes of them are now established church know ancient and willie tradition of fix social position the great and melancholy exception to this course is slavery and our tradition of racial discrimination but this tradition is a problem until precisely because it collides so sharply with egalitarianism that is also a tradition in american writing it has produced the great and central american valor liberal reformist american leaders of the car and we return to the theme of the injustice of inequality and of the need to redress of hours in order to advance a right of ordinary people we were like oh that would be that for the length of the week let me

that for you to wipe away immediately with that or write that you've made of the government the limit on women and in china where the confusion of like and living in the word that we have already waited shall be able to walk like me children grow into men and women the va avanti and we like made a politician and the people yet it the government you primarily an imprint of the people that they will do all they can do with young people they all well and i mean that they are on all really well really

well and there had been a lie and that a moment ago and you know what but it is the right of people like gary hart they believe a lot of very important and i don't want that thank you in any given a

practical front of liberalism i've been to seek out those imbalances how which are the major causes of social justice and to seek to oh i've had a new balance in which people will have a better opportunity to compete equally with one another in every generation deliberately lied to reform recreate henri levy american people where they want to go someone else will get one when a bill murray hill a plaid oh now here are the while wondering well and next year private will meet the home mortgage interest

now i know well no now iran's right ma where originally a memo was buying millions of us now david arellano no guarantee that that will beginning the wall of it now if we went he prayed

they want the only way that they in it we won't make them the day when the act now the force of the top young person that was with a jacksonville and that progressive liberals that divide our history thank you government run for the benefit of you will inevitably destroy all our government run for the good of all metal there's lessons about the court we must follow in voting for them while the

cries of reactionary reporters at the state of the union message my statement these men who live in the paths are aligned me about clara i'm here all of music because a small wooden were called the bird lindsay bird's neck isn't label reading i lie about where i don't care where i'm going i just want to see where they were at i was it is the talks

well there are some i am this week the reason we have the resources thank you i see in an

icu unit we don't know buy two and within yemen is the invasion of acting when at a glowing worms which was spoken in nineteen fifty two i seem to many to mark the end of an era or indeed just to be echoes a lot of a period of twenty years earlier when the high tide of liberalism was reach what has been happening to liberalism in the decade since nineteen fifty two i have been talking with some people who have been active

in liberal thought and then the real action former chancellor of the university of chicago is now chairman of the center for the study of democratic institutions at santa barbara california is been a close observer of lentils singh for these past decade i think the greatest educated are on the growth potential educator united states is the president of the united states if you have a president who is committed to freedom and justice were regarded as rome's in rome the educational leadership when news directions than those of showing up on disarmament that shows to throw up and this is this was roosevelt's great contribution he was a great teacher which is an odd thing since it was not a great intellectual working in communications

these aren't willing to have approved just society and that wasn't possible for people to dedicate themselves not pose a very unjust society and feeling that this wasn't so why the thing to go along with that song why not what happened it's not just personality featured sparkling personality is movies partly or reaction of the us probably the cold war and probably the fact that a nineteen thirty two we were confronted with the end of the american dream as roofers so powerful rich nation the status quo is a discipline that we can understand and appreciate why should we don't really

know we've got a number of people you have said that they look like the interlude had a great deal to do with the current condition of liberalism years and exist for reasons litan nominations always there only question is what will renew concerns caribbean mitchell palmer raids the new moment in moments all and these are all manifestations of her own manifestations of this game we'll wait and seven more than in the united states which what you got some anti foreigner anti immigration anti of refinancings to promise change even answer and ears to question what's the new to be some

of the internal difficulties with which we're going to ponder that had suffered from internal defects liberal movement ensure morning we have to lift ourselves our own bootstraps and with different virtual world and loose with a responsibility only educational system universities which are relatively weak inspire students is an extraordinarily grave one who refused to not tell you you're doing really well what they're doing is accommodating young people and plus environments into the regular work universities are providing for vocational certification that you can't practice veterinary medicine which certificate and young men raises aren't those who specialize scientific

research anomalies they're having to deal with the problem of the kind of critical intelligence was essential to the success of religious thank you very much very large element in the tradition of american liberalism made in the usa this has been the kind of progressive ism that's come out of the west and that has been identified with people like senator george marshall father of the tv age and that senator robert la follette today in the senate on that part of the country we have a senator eugene mccarthy democrat from minnesota the senator in the past liberal reform movements have been attended with a good deal of steel obsessive love of life love and why do you feel that this same sort of emotion that same sort of seal surrounds liberal reform movements today i suppose that in part though there was more intense divided and

perhaps more surreal because for the most part be a liberal then the challengers they're on the outside since demanding a chance to prove themselves about williams' speech to kind of limit the way the liberals have really been dominating force i think in american politics really since nineteen hundred and thirty two film pirate were distracted are kept busy defending or less the status quo which is our stated goal and senator do you feel it's a little odd to say that that job of liberals days to defend the status quo lawyers are involved today do you think that

liberalism major business seems to be to defend initiatives defensive role in terms of some of the basic civil liberties and constitutional rights which were not challenged in quite the same way in the thirties as they are today there questions of free speech for example this was not much of an issue that they're used to date is so the liberals who would like to believe these things were taken for granted there are called awesome fight on economic and social issues to deal with challenges to basic human rights and civil rights of the constitution on there to your mind any new issues current day of an economic or social kind of the kind of mention jewish liberals mike of attention and which might arouse the same old intensity and seal well i think there are new

challenges in economic and social area but not quite as easy to clarify the border our client and drop your cases it was back in the depression one of them are less universally acknowledge that the economy was and in that way present the unemployment was a serious national problem today the argument with regard to the economy are much more sophisticated not so much good thing here is a depression but it's the issue of the president's been trying to clarify that the economy can be moved from a high level without a recession or depression to a relatively higher level and others say it's hard to make that case is not quite as exciting in the human equation is not quite so evident as one or heard you say that liberals programs are coming across when they have proposed more than it really does both but the fact is that the those things that have been disposed in the senate have been except perhaps not in all of our leisure have been

part of the liberal programs i think like gary redevelopment sense of a relatively new concept in the approach to economic problems in this country or the manpower retraining program you might argue that it simply asserts that the program that you could have said the same thing about social security for example when it was first introduced back and in nineteen thirty four thirty five that the retirement age of state regulation there are many people who feel a liberal and a lot of identity and focus however among the people who are very active in practical politics says democratic sen cory newberg who has never failed to identify herself unequivocally as a liberal senator and as a citizen i sometimes have the feeling and i know a great many people who

do have the feeling that liberal programs are really going to be scuttled in congress there's not much point in presenting them every time an issue it's prevented any closer than rooting out the confetti in the community having witnesses having a special we'll get into the floorboard they neither going to defeat or passing an educational process is going on and i've seen it happen with the certain civil rights thing with housing legislation with pollution not succeeded for now the great gpa grand palais the national events that occasion act the international highway system and all the things that are liberal ideas do you have a feeling senator that the senate and house are more conservative less

liberal and the people as a whole are definitely you do oh yes the great her black hair when a poke it on air which showed the people climbing a mountain and here is the congress and their leaders down below and the congress are saying to people he wait for me because i don't think an even now more so than ever before the people i have had their leaders i see it especially in the south where i think that people are changing and the leadership that statement congress is not without some of her i wonder what you think the major problem which liberals are they going to be why just fresh from an international conference in switzerland so this probably uppermost in my mind where all the resolutions and all the documents brought in by the countries of the block who were represented there czechoslovakia poland yugoslavia and the ussr itself continually point that the shortcomings in

education in our country because you know we have a school system a county in virginia where no negro child has been in school since nineteen fifty nine and i can't go to an international meeting and say oh we are the greater their area republican educational so there's just dramatizes one of those areas that i constantly encounter at international meetings senator at these international conferences do you run into comments about our medical care of a lot of it indeed and i do think that this is probably next to education the most important problem of miracle and we liberals in the congress are party leaders that term icon health care to our age citizens as an important part of our program would you show we've been doing well on those things you know not until

now we haven't you know walk yeah i think i do know why are we doing well it causes a small band of earth in the congress a great deal of concern i think about it a lot i think a lot of it has to do with communication system i worry that's in the far right and fed them with the most harmed by building up of distrust in the federal government kaur spent time at state of affairs there is something in the liberal past i think many liberals characteristically a fear too much centralized government or i don't have any fear of the federal government because that it can do things that no idea that only figures argument over family to education if i thought there was anything in any of the bales ivory and are seeing that imply it that there would be the grey hair and the federal government reaching out and telling what textbooks what we teach and how to teach

it i would be opposed to it because i'm a liberal and we were beginning to have some major issues that liberals read the report and i believe that most liberals believe in a public housing program but then when i mean at one point is in the area can throughout our history they're very very interested in conservation conservation love her not only natural resources sometimes people think of that just trees that will be less though we do have that problem right now in the congress conservation means them pure stream of water and i remember a great conservative president of just the three years ago a good veto of the hour congress has to clean up polluted

streams and they fixed i don't know but that was conserving it right and that there should be a state problem for getting that a lot of pollution doesn't know where the state line stopped in rivers and grainy terry as dr strangelove thing i think you'll find liberals always on this program do you feel if you take responsible conservatives and kind of responsible practical liberal form you speak that there's a difference in go through oh i think they're definitely yes yes so put more stress on the material accomplishments and i think that tone of the factory the richest nation of the highest per capita is the goal and then in education they want history as doing things that achievement cheerio

well meaning well i think as a liberal thanked that maybe there are some other variants that don't necessarily make you the richest person that may be a happier person or making a contribution and i like to think that fear the pioneer isn't it took my grandfather and great grandfather out and do that i really didn't even know that they will thank you very much liberalism in the past is often in dissent from the mainstream thought but there were many today who believe that liberals have lost their own dissenting spirit and are becoming part of the establishment a professor stuart hughes of harvard university a distinguished historian and social critic ran for the senate in massachusetts as an independent candidate in nineteen sixty eight two professors use believes that neither major party

today is facing up to the important issues that ought to be faced mr hughes do you feel that there is a tendency today among liberals to be cautious to play it's a there's a massive consensus in this country which i would not call exactly liberal i'm not sure i'd call a conservative either there's a center moderate consensus in both parties and the liberals want to take office they had to sign up with one of the big parties and then fall into line as members of the administration i think you know the whole idea that coordination of two parties in power simply does not describe the present situation at the two parties are too close what do you think of the issues of the values of a sacrifice by signing up as you say well i would say of the three great issues before the country only one gets properly vetted and that is the issue of human equality

racial integration which is wrong so forcefully to public attention by mass demonstrations by constant pressure of right at home and that this cannot be a thing but the other two issues the issue of peace and disarmament on the one hand and the issue of shifting from a consumption society to a public welfare society of these issues simply are not face and get their eight most of the time in either a bureaucratic compromise or in a certain amount of liberal rhetoric in what way do you think that liberals today are falling short with regard to these two issues well i think the trouble with liberals is that they don't question the basic assumption and which public policy is running that is in the field of peace and disarmament there is the assumption

that the struggle against communism is the main thing is the priority number one i would say is priority number three the first priority is the prevention of war the second priority is to alleviate poverty among most of you know the third question is that a comet and if we could solve the first two i think there would be no problem and that's what i mean my assumptions and similarly on the field of public welfare there is the general assumption that if private income it's going we will have a good society what people do not see is that there is a large percentage of the population left out of this prosperity and that simply pushing out private incomes and does nothing for the public sector if you question the assumptions on the cold war and want to cut down as i wanted to at

minimum deterrence position that is the minimum number of nuclear weapons necessary to give a potential enemy because if one wants to do that and hear it the estimates professor seelye mehlman much more the specialist the line and if you do that you can cut down the defense budget from roughly a fifty five million billion to just over nine that this means there's something like forty five billion dollars to play around with it that doesn't sound too prevalent what many independent what should we could do for our people if we want spending such a tremendous percentage of our resources on of a kind dissident liberalism which you're describing what to make some progress what obstacles to mind would have to overcome in this country today well again the of the obstacles would be primarily a psychological

and obstacles of assumptions i think the main obstacle is that people just cannot image an american radically different from what we had i think if you said to most americans are cities are a disgrace which i prefer a they would feel it possibly an unpatriotic now i think the state of the city's is perhaps the most dramatic case in point the one that i cite law it regularly because i'm one of those old fashioned people enjoy is a lack of belief that something can be done about the railroad is the very simple question decisive government action with a small expenditure bombs could rescue the railroads tomorrow or we have to do is say they are in the public interest but

i find this i travel railroads or the plans and find people grumbling that totally defeated just they just assume the railroads are going down and this pass is my understanding well it has usually we don't ask what sort of society we walked and then ask how can we finance we asked first job would pay for itself i can't attack struck cervera we ask all the secondary questions rather than putting first ago what is the good society when i think it's frustrating about the third quarter of the twentieth century is for the first time in human history we could have you know right here and now for something approaching and if we used our resources no no previous generation i have been able to do it very much liberals have historically rally

around the issue of individual liberty when we take into account the vastness of our nation and the difficulty of absorbing generation after generation of new arrivals into this heterogeneous nation the record of our country with regard to individual liberties seems to me to be a problem still is quite obviously been offering prayer for our special imitation of them encountered particularly when we have run into the emotions biracial issue the freedom riders and recently uncovered it is he's baby

a long and arduous fight for equal rights when the grocers and it's of course an all too painful example of our failure to achieve a liberal society an important respect for that fight is also an example of the strength of the aspiration toward equality felt even by those members of our society who have not benefited very greatly for more egalitarian tradition still for all its bitterness and all its difficulties the question of equal rights for negro citizens is in many

ways a fairly simple issue morally finds a clear at any rate from the liberal point of view intellectually problems it raises fit neatly into the inherited category of liberal thought and politically the problem is one which it is easy to dramatize today in america our most of our problems enough or so easily into these comfortable on categories the many against the few poorer against the rich the unselfish against the selfish their problems like the improvement of the quality of american education or the control of science and technology for the revitalization of our voluntary orders haitian in order to make them better places for the party freedom of individual one of the most urgent of the issues now confronting the united states is that of urbanization and the american city

urban strangulation and white have become epidemic ironically this problem manifested itself fairly early and what might be considered the birthplace of american liberal of the city of philadelphia probably the resilience of contemporary american liberalism has also been demonstrated in philadelphia richardson two words first district attorney of the city and subsequently of my ear was a central figure in the store next door when you reform movement began in philadelphia around nineteen forty seven what needed to be done for that he was a city that had been become complacent smug and which were added one party government for over sixty years of government that did nothing the question when's it wasn't so much as it was the incompetence the end but once that lack of imagination whether then the realization what was required in the twentieth century and the the orion that still control

serviceable is the way people like the level that people want to come here there's a lot so you have this enormous amount of emotion that have to be overcome ed outward sign was not just a loss of population that even worse than that there's a loss of any call it as i recall but it does become a gray chevy fundamentally i think the thing made it possible to bring a change is that that's what was necessary was the young people coming back from the war they really are devoted to their city and what it will go on that is cited some really had begun our the specific details of these young people and people like you set yourself well very simply it was to try and create a city in which you going to live decently were recently in which it would be a joy to bring up you're having fundamentally that was the basis on which the it was all how did you get this message across we never could've gotten all that there had

been an anonymous amount of corruption and incompetence that was really were some corruption in which we get busy we can really show and show you for example we have stood one day outside of the mayor's house on a truck he lived right down in south bureau low income but then he kind of the city was well governed well we pointed out that right outside his house was obvious anybody did seem going in and out was a numbers bank that girl about thirty feet down the street next to the police station was a house but to ocean than anyone to go within and easter and they'd require things like that too actually support for these reform movements part of what's going on but in our very first campaign when i had to muster about one hundred young people young teachers young doctors and there was very discouraging of course

we have no money when organization and we will pause a ten or twelve year problem when we started but it actually tracked about two years what do you think was accomplished i think primarily what we can take some credit for is a change in the spirit of the people of the city i think that's the most important single thing in spirit which realizes that the city is a vital part of this urban civilization that the city is the heart and cap rate great urban area and that it has to be made a place of some charm and some beauty in some ways that people cannot live in a democracy successfully unless they have some beauty and grace and charm indecency around and the physical end of it is tremendously important of course but just the physical changes themselves being very well except as a symbol of the spirit of the people the city at least that's my kid would you say as you look back on your experience in philadelphia that the law by its

own government is leadership just as much as handing out orders oh almost entirely so i think the mayor has to spend the greater part of his time simply punishing that kind of leadership in china laos the spirit of the people yes and i think we don't have a lot of success in that respect and one of the things that was very helpful the business community was rich rob malley cooperative extraordinarily helpful and the bankers do a tremendous job in a rehabilitation program that set up a one million dollar loan revolving loan which was one of the really key factors in a rehabilitation program why haven't there been more philadelphia stories no other cities are doing in different ways for instance there's an amazing rebirth i think in boston going on i think they're the same thing is true in chicago and the same thing is true in the end many other cities and in the country

in and some few cases it's explained on my family can serve the growth of my mind i think that to get the drive to get the imagination and the willingness to take on the kind of programs that are essential you do have to have a radio or one of you you have to be willing yes they are willing to fiat government programs and you have to stand up against a criticism and you're invading it feels so private industry mr wirth in view of all these problems are you optimistic about the prospects of liberalism in the united states very optimistic about and where it's going to have its real strength is the city's book was the city's other rail marketplace of ideas more and more non happy to see that he and it's a logical thing for people i think there will have to be to live in an area where they have to bob and every kind of almonds really really unpleasant problems and i think people are beginning to realize more and more that the city is the key to our whole civilization a day and unless the city comes through in good

shape as civilization will inevitably fail and and i don't mean the problem is any rougher than immigration problems were in the i think that the sixties seventies and eighties this is only one of the very many sorts of patients inviting liberal thought and action here within the united states but there's also another kind of a few liberals have to be aware that outside the united states in many parts of the world the durability of american liberal that it's relevant its part to engender the movements that reformers and revolutionaries elsewhere won a widely doubted his liberalism in a word a provincial it was once just a white man's burden and is it now just a white man falling or at any rate are comfortable that all of these questions the young men and women particularly of debate here in the united states and even more in other parts of the world

the views of some farmers do all of them here in the united states for six months or a number of years i've been asked i think that they are useful considerable light on the present situation of american liberalism in the world my name is patrick who receive i come from was to nigeria i have been here since september last year the way we think of democrats in may not be the way americans think about their own democracy nigerians often wonder why india's country wrestle march eight aides talk about fried dough on fundamental human rights you'll find out a rush of discrimination to be so rampant egos in some disease even denying life we often feel for much about them when we hear about them i'm irene or other

from the philippines and i've been here for eight months i had a very good idea what marks in the fight and i am in really disillusioned i don't think the german democracy is uniting and states cannot be applied to our country where the citizenry is and forty acres and i think that the art was important in and states my name is hooters are have been here six years i come from turkey we have in principle accepted western liberalism so this week and of course if they're retrofitted literacy is high then came home to vote the unknown in a country like turkey glover is susceptible to move to new ideas there is a great danger you know teaching them how to read and write

to then comes the problem of going off to even write the mother they going to do with my name is marcus the clinic helped i'm from ethiopia and abbey in the united states since august nineteen sixty two of the medications that european would get lost associate democracy with america but if he starts analyze the democracy america at that the first fault of democracy would be the problem all the colored people and the fact that people are more aware of how to better access to power in the light of all this it should not be surprising that american liberalism today should feel itself to be a tour of a new kind of situation more americans than ever before enjoy a quality about that turner in the economy and education and

society in law yet we have the problem of maintaining the sense of distinction in the culture which is increasingly geared to satisfy the homogenized tastes of an abstract average individual family the old liberal hope of diffusing call more broadly in the community has an important senate and realize the economic interests of wagers for example a protected by government and by powerful organizations whose place in turn protected by law still it seems difficult for the ordinary citizen to make his way from giant organizations for the center's a park where the decisions i'm a one of the reasons why the practical issues augers all is the liberal ideas themselves are a state of flux it seems to me that the equally pessimistic notion that american liberalism has had its day and has no future seems to me that this notion of just a bit

over got liberalism is not simply a triumphant heritage of the press it was a major factor in the creation of this work showing that rhymes with a day the capacity to meet and to master that were what is now remaining question what can it help but the main question is whether the american liberal as the whale to meet that bar the imf have to remember that a lot of the movement that well i'm in a tree all

right very well it is the pain it's

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