{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_74319/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_74319","id":"gutenberg_74319","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74319","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Politics","Conservatism -- United States","United States -- Politics and government -- 20th century"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Notes:\n\nText enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).\n\nAdditional Transcriber\u2019s Notes are at the end.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n\nTHE CONSCIENCE OF A CONSERVATIVE\n\n\n  _by_\n  BARRY GOLDWATER\n\n  _1960_\n  VICTOR PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.\n  1 4th Avenue, Shepherdsville, Kentucky\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Copyright 1960\n\n  By\n\n  VICTOR PUBLISHING COMPANY, INC.\n\n  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No reproduction in any form of\n  this book, in whole or in part, (except for brief quotation\n  in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written\n  authorization from the publisher.\n\n  First Printing 10,000 copies March 1960\n  Second Printing 10,000 copies April 1960\n  Third Printing 50,000 copies May 1960\n\n  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 60-12269\n\n  Printed in the United States of America\n\n\n\n\nFOREWORD\n\n\nThis book is not written with the idea of adding to or improving on the\nConservative philosophy. Or of \u201cbringing it up to date.\u201d The ancient\nand tested truths that guided our Republic through its early days\nwill do equally well for us. The challenge to Conservatives today is\nquite simply to demonstrate the bearing of a proven philosophy on the\nproblems of our own time.\n\nI should explain the considerations that led me to join in this\neffort. I am a politician, a United States Senator. As such, I have\nhad an opportunity to learn something about the political instincts\nof the American people, I have crossed the length and breadth of\nthis great land hundreds of times and talked with tens of thousands\nof people, with Democrats and Republicans, with farmers and laborers\nand businessmen. I find that America is fundamentally a Conservative\nnation. The preponderant judgment of the American people, especially\nof the young people, is that the radical, or Liberal, approach has not\nworked and is not working. They yearn for a return to Conservative\nprinciples.\n\nAt the same time, I have been in a position to observe first hand how\nConservatism is faring in Washington. And it is all too clear that in\nspite of a Conservative revival among the people the radical ideas that\nwere promoted by the New and Fair Deals under the guise of Liberalism\nstill dominate the councils of our national government.\n\nIn a country where it is now generally understood and proclaimed that\nthe people\u2019s welfare depends on individual self reliance rather than\non state paternalism, Congress annually deliberates over whether the\n_increase_ in government welfarism should be small or large.\n\nIn a country where it is now generally understood and proclaimed that\nthe federal government spends too much, Congress annually deliberates\nover whether to raise the federal budget by a few billion dollars or by\nmany billion.\n\nIn a country where it is now generally understood and proclaimed that\nindividual liberty depends on decentralized government, Congress\nannually deliberates over whether vigorous or halting steps should be\ntaken to bring state government into line with federal policy.\n\nIn a country where it is now generally understood and proclaimed\nthat Communism is an enemy bound to destroy us, Congress annually\ndeliberates over means of \u201cco-existing\u201d with the Soviet Union.\n\nAnd so the question arises: Why have American people been unable to\ntranslate their views into appropriate political action? Why should the\nnation\u2019s underlying allegiance to Conservative principles have failed\nto produce corresponding deeds in Washington?\n\nI do not blame my brethren in government, all of whom\nwork hard and conscientiously at their jobs. I blame\nConservatives--ourselves--myself. Our failure, as one Conservative\nwriter has put it, is the failure of the Conservative demonstration.\nThough we Conservatives are deeply persuaded that our society\nis ailing, and know that Conservatism holds the key to national\nsalvation--and feel sure the country agrees with us--we seem unable\nto demonstrate the practical relevance of Conservative principles to\nthe needs of the day. We sit by impotently while Congress seeks to\nimprovise solutions to problems that are not the real problems facing\nthe country, while the government attempts to assuage imagined concerns\nand ignores the real concerns and real needs of the people.\n\nPerhaps we suffer from an over-sensitivity to the judgments of those\nwho rule the mass communications media. We are daily consigned by\n\u201cenlightened\u201d commentators to political oblivion: Conservatism, we\nare told, is out-of-date. The charge is preposterous and we ought\nboldly to say so. The laws of God, and of nature, have no dateline.\nThe principles on which the Conservative political position is based\nhave been established by a process that has nothing to do with the\nsocial, economic and political landscape that changes from decade to\ndecade and from century to century. These principles are derived from\nthe nature of man, and from the truths that God has revealed about His\ncreation. Circumstances do change. So do the problems that are shaped\nby circumstances. But the principles that govern the solution of the\nproblems do not. To suggest that the Conservative philosophy is out of\ndate is akin to saying that the Golden Rule, or the Ten Commandments or\nAristotle\u2019s _Politics_ are out of date. The Conservative approach is\nnothing more or less than an attempt to apply the wisdom and experience\nand the revealed truths of the past to the problems of today. The\nchallenge is not to find new or different truths, but to learn how to\napply established truths to the problems of the contemporary world. My\nhope is that one more Conservative voice will be helpful in meeting\nthis challenge.\n\nThis book is an attempt to bridge the gap between theory and practice.\nI shall draw upon my speeches, the radio and television broadcasts and\nthe notes I have made over the years in the hope of doing what one is\noften unable to do in the course of a harried day\u2019s work on the Senate\nfloor: to show the connection between Conservative principles so widely\nespoused, and Conservative action, so generally neglected.\n\n\n\n\nTable of Contents\n\n\n                                   PAGE\n                                  NUMBER\n\n  FOREWORD\n\n  THE CONSCIENCE OF A CONSERVATIVE  9\n\n  THE PERILS OF POWER              15\n\n  STATES\u2019 RIGHTS                   24\n\n  AND CIVIL RIGHTS                 31\n\n  FREEDOM FOR THE FARMER           38\n\n  FREEDOM FOR LABOR                44\n\n  TAXES AND SPENDING               58\n\n  THE WELFARE STATE                68\n\n  SOME NOTES ON EDUCATION          76\n\n  THE SOVIET MENACE                86\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER ONE The Conscience of a Conservative\n\n\nI have been much concerned that so many people today with Conservative\ninstincts feel compelled to apologize for them. Or if not to apologize\ndirectly, to qualify their commitment in a way that amounts to\nbreast-beating. \u201cRepublican candidates,\u201d Vice President Nixon has\nsaid, \u201cshould be economic conservatives, but conservatives with a\nheart.\u201d President Eisenhower announced during his first term, \u201cI am\nconservative when it comes to economic problems but liberal when\nit comes to human problems.\u201d Still other Republican leaders have\ninsisted on calling themselves \u201cprogressive\u201d Conservatives.[1] These\nformulations are tantamount to an admission that Conservatism is a\nnarrow, mechanistic _economic_ theory that may work very well as a\nbookkeeper\u2019s guide, but cannot be relied upon as a comprehensive\npolitical philosophy.\n\nThe same judgment, though in the form of an attack rather than an\nadmission, is advanced by the radical camp. \u201cWe liberals,\u201d they say,\n\u201care interested in _people_. Our concern is with human beings, while\nyou Conservatives are preoccupied with the preservation of economic\nprivilege and status.\u201d Take them a step further, and the Liberals will\nturn the accusations into a class argument: it is the little people\nthat concern us, not the \u201cmalefactors of great wealth.\u201d\n\nSuch statements, from friend and foe alike, do great injustice to the\nConservative point of view. Conservatism is _not_ an economic theory,\nthough it has economic implications. The shoe is precisely on the other\nfoot: it is Socialism that subordinates all other considerations to\nman\u2019s material well-being. It is Conservatism that puts material things\nin their proper place--that has a structured view of the human being\nand of human society, in which economics plays only a subsidiary role.\n\nThe root difference between the Conservatives and the Liberals of\ntoday is that Conservatives take account of the _whole_ man, while the\nLiberals tend to look only at the material side of man\u2019s nature. The\nConservative believes that man is, in part, an economic, an animal\ncreature; but that he is also a spiritual creature with spiritual needs\nand spiritual desires. What is more, these needs and desires reflect\nthe _superior_ side of man\u2019s nature, and thus take precedence over his\neconomic wants. Conservatism therefore looks upon the enhancement of\nman\u2019s spiritual nature as the primary concern of political philosophy.\nLiberals, on the other hand,--in the name of a concern for \u201chuman\nbeings\u201d--regard the satisfaction of economic wants as the dominant\nmission of society. They are, moreover, in a hurry. So that their\ncharacteristic approach is to harness the society\u2019s political and\neconomic forces into a collective effort to _compel_ \u201cprogress.\u201d In\nthis approach, I believe they fight against Nature.\n\nSurely the first obligation of a political thinker is to understand\nthe nature of man. The Conservative does not claim special powers of\nperception on this point, but he does claim a familiarity with the\naccumulated wisdom and experience of history, and he is not too proud\nto learn from the great minds of the past.\n\nThe first thing he has learned about man is that each member of the\nspecies is a unique creature. Man\u2019s most sacred possession is his\nindividual soul--which has an immortal side, but also a mortal one.\nThe mortal side establishes his absolute differentness from every\nother human being. _Only a philosophy that takes into account the\nessential differences between men, and, accordingly, makes provision\nfor developing the different potentialities of each man can claim to\nbe in accord with Nature._ We have heard much in our time about \u201cthe\ncommon man.\u201d It is a concept that pays little attention to the history\nof a nation that grew great through the initiative and ambition of\nuncommon men. The Conservative knows that to regard man as part of an\nundifferentiated mass is to consign him to ultimate slavery.\n\nSecondly, the Conservative has learned that the economic and spiritual\naspects of man\u2019s nature are inextricably intertwined. He cannot be\neconomically free, or even economically efficient, if he is enslaved\npolitically; conversely, man\u2019s political freedom is illusory if he is\ndependent for his economic needs on the State.\n\nThe Conservative realizes, thirdly, that man\u2019s development, in both its\nspiritual and material aspects, is not something that can be directed\nby outside forces. Every man, for his individual good and for the good\nof his society, is responsible for his _own_ development. The choices\nthat govern his life are choices that _he_ must make: they cannot be\nmade by any other human being, or by a collectivity of human beings. If\nthe Conservative is less anxious than his Liberal brethren to increase\nSocial Security \u201cbenefits,\u201d it is because he is more anxious than his\nLiberal brethren that people be free throughout their lives to spend\ntheir earnings when and as they see fit.\n\nSo it is that Conservatism, throughout history, has regarded\nman neither as a potential pawn of other men, nor as a part of\na general collectivity in which the sacredness and the separate\nidentity of individual human beings are ignored. Throughout history,\ntrue Conservatism has been at war equally with autocrats and with\n\u201cdemocratic\u201d Jacobins. The true Conservative was sympathetic with the\nplight of the hapless peasant under the tyranny of the French monarchy.\nAnd he was equally revolted at the attempt to solve that problem by\na mob tyranny that paraded under the banner of egalitarianism. The\nconscience of the Conservative is pricked by _anyone_ who would debase\nthe dignity of the individual human being. Today, therefore, he is at\nodds with dictators who rule by terror, and equally with those gentler\ncollectivists who ask our permission to play God with the human race.\n\nWith this view of the nature of man, it is understandable that\nthe Conservative looks upon politics as the art of achieving the\nmaximum amount of freedom for individuals that is consistent with\nthe maintenance of social order. The Conservative is the first to\nunderstand that the practice of freedom requires the establishment\nof order: it is impossible for one man to be free if another is able\nto deny him the exercise of his freedom. But the Conservative also\nrecognizes that the political power on which order is based is a\nself-aggrandizing force; that its appetite grows with eating. He knows\nthat the utmost vigilance and care are required to keep political\npower within its proper bounds.\n\nIn our day, order is pretty well taken care of. The delicate balance\nthat ideally exists between freedom and order has long since tipped\nagainst freedom practically everywhere on earth. In some countries,\nfreedom is altogether down and order holds absolute sway. In our\ncountry the trend is less far advanced, but it is well along and\ngathering momentum every day. Thus, for the American Conservative,\nthere is no difficulty in identifying the day\u2019s overriding political\nchallenge: it is _to preserve and extend freedom_. As he surveys the\nvarious attitudes and institutions and laws that currently prevail\nin America, many questions will occur to him, but the Conservative\u2019s\nfirst concern will always be: _Are we maximizing freedom?_ I suggest we\nexamine some of the critical issues facing us today with this question\nin mind.\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[1] This is a strange label indeed: it implies that \u201cordinary\u201d\nConservatism is opposed to progress. Have we forgotten that America\nmade its greatest progress when Conservative principles were honored\nand preserved.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TWO The Perils of Power\n\n\nThe New Deal, Dean Acheson wrote approvingly in a book called _A\nDemocrat Looks At His Party_, \u201cconceived of the federal government as\nthe whole people organized to do what had to be done.\u201d A year later Mr.\nLarson wrote _A Republican Looks At His Party_, and made much the same\nclaim in his book for Modern Republicans. The \u201cunderlying philosophy\u201d\nof the New Republicanism, said Mr. Larson, is that \u201cif a job has to be\ndone to meet the needs of the people, and no one else can do it, then\nit is the proper function of the federal government.\u201d\n\nHere we have, by prominent spokesmen of both political parties, an\nunqualified repudiation of the principle of limited government. There\nis no reference by either of them to the Constitution, or any attempt\nto define the legitimate functions of government. The government can\ndo whatever _needs_ to be done; note, too, the implicit but necessary\nassumption that it is the government itself that determines _what_\nneeds to be done. We must not, I think underrate the importance of\nthese statements. They reflect the view of a majority of the leaders\nof one of our parties, and of a strong minority among the leaders of\nthe other, and they propound the first principle of totalitarianism:\nthat the State is competent to do all things and is limited in what it\nactually does only by the will of those who control the State.\n\nIt is clear that this view is in direct conflict with the Constitution\nwhich is an instrument, above all, for _limiting_ the functions of\ngovernment, and which is as binding today as when it was written. But\nwe are advised to go a step further and ask why the Constitution\u2019s\nframers restricted the scope of government. Conservatives are often\ncharged, and in a sense rightly so, with having an overly mechanistic\nview of the Constitution: \u201cIt is America\u2019s enabling document; we are\nAmerican citizens; therefore,\u201d the Conservatives\u2019 theme runs, \u201cwe are\nmorally and legally obliged to comply with the document.\u201d All true.\nBut the Constitution has a broader claim on our loyalty than that. The\nfounding fathers had a _reason_ for endorsing the principle of limited\ngovernment; and this reason recommends defense of the constitutional\nscheme even to those who take their citizenship obligations lightly.\nThe reason is simple, and it lies at the heart of the Conservative\nphilosophy.\n\nThroughout history, government has proved to be the chief instrument\nfor thwarting man\u2019s liberty. Government represents power in the\nhands of some men to control and regulate the lives of other men. And\npower, as Lord Acton said, _corrupts_ men. \u201cAbsolute power,\u201d he added,\n\u201ccorrupts absolutely.\u201d\n\nState power, considered in the abstract, need not restrict freedom:\nbut absolute state power always does. The _legitimate_ functions of\ngovernment are actually conducive to freedom. Maintaining internal\norder, keeping foreign foes at bay, administering justice, removing\nobstacles to the free interchange of goods--the exercise of these\npowers makes it possible for men to follow their chosen pursuits with\nmaximum freedom. But note that the very instrument by which these\ndesirable ends are achieved _can_ be the instrument for achieving\nundesirable ends--that government can, instead of extending freedom,\nrestrict freedom. And note, secondly, that the \u201ccan\u201d quickly becomes\n\u201cwill\u201d the moment the holders of government power are left to their\nown devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power,\nthe natural tendency of men who possess _some_ power to take unto\nthemselves _more_ power. The tendency leads eventually to the\nacquisition of _all_ power--whether in the hands of one or many makes\nlittle difference to the freedom of those left on the outside.\n\nSuch, then, is history\u2019s lesson, which Messrs. Acheson and Larson\nevidently did not read: release the holders of state power from any\nrestraints other than those they wish to impose upon themselves, and\nyou are swinging down the well-travelled road to absolutism.\n\nThe framers of the Constitution had learned the lesson. They were not\nonly students of history, but victims of it: they knew from vivid,\npersonal experience that freedom depends on effective restraints\nagainst the accumulation of power in a single authority. And that is\nwhat the Constitution is: _a system of restraints against the natural\ntendency of government to expand in the direction of absolutism_. We\nall know the main components of the system. The first is the limitation\nof the federal government\u2019s authority to specific, delegated powers.\nThe second, a corollary of the first, is the reservation to the States\nand the people of all power not delegated to the federal government.\nThe third is a careful division of the federal government\u2019s power among\nthree separate branches. The fourth is a prohibition against impetuous\nalteration of the system--namely, Article V\u2019s tortuous, but wise,\namendment procedures.\n\nWas it then a _Democracy_ the framers created? Hardly. The system of\nrestraints, on the face of it, was directed not only against individual\ntyrants, but also against a tyranny of the masses. The framers were\nwell aware of the danger posed by self-seeking demagogues--that they\nmight persuade a majority of the people to confer on government vast\npowers in return for deceptive promises of economic gain. And so they\nforbade such a transfer of power--first by declaring, in effect, that\ncertain activities are outside the natural and legitimate scope of the\npublic authority, and secondly by dispersing public authority among\nseveral levels and branches of government in the hope that each seat\nof authority, jealous of its own prerogatives, would have a natural\nincentive to resist aggression by the others.\n\nBut the framers were not visionaries. They knew that rules of\ngovernment, however brilliantly calculated to cope with the imperfect\nnature of man, however carefully designed to avoid the pitfalls of\npower, would be no match for men who were determined to disregard them.\nIn the last analysis their system of government would prosper only if\nthe governed were sufficiently determined that it should. \u201cWhat have\nyou given us?\u201d a woman asked Ben Franklin toward the close of the\nConstitutional Convention. \u201cA Republic,\u201d he said, \u201c_if you can keep\nit_!\u201d\n\nWe have not kept it. The Achesons and Larsons have had their way. The\nsystem of restraints has fallen into disrepair. The federal government\nhas moved into every field in which it believes its services are\nneeded. The state governments are either excluded from their rightful\nfunctions by federal preemption, or they are allowed to act at the\nsufferance of the federal government. Inside the federal government\nboth the executive and judicial branches have roamed far outside their\nconstitutional boundary lines. And all of these things have come to\npass without regard to the amendment procedures prescribed by Article\nV. The result is a Leviathan, a vast national authority out of touch\nwith the people, and out of their control. This monolith of power is\nbounded only by the will of those who sit in high places.\n\nThere are a number of ways in which the power of government can be\nmeasured.\n\nOne is the size of its financial operations. Federal spending is now\napproaching a hundred billion dollars a year (compared with three and\none-half billion less than three decades ago.)\n\nAnother is the scope of its activities. A study recently conducted\nby the _Chicago Tribune_ showed that the federal government is now\nthe \u201cbiggest land owner, property manager, renter, mover and hauler,\nmedical clinician, lender, insurer, mortgage broker, employer, debtor,\ntaxer and spender in all history.\u201d\n\nStill another is the portion of the peoples\u2019 earnings government\nappropriates for its own use: nearly a third of earnings are taken\nevery year in the form of taxes.\n\nA fourth is the extent of government interference in the daily lives\nof individuals. The farmer is told how much wheat he can grow. The\nwage earner is at the mercy of national union leaders whose great\npower is a direct consequence of federal labor legislation. The\nbusinessman is hampered by a maze of government regulations, and often\nby direct government competition. The government takes six per cent of\nmost payrolls in Social Security Taxes and thus compels millions of\nindividuals to postpone until later years the enjoyment of wealth they\nmight otherwise enjoy today. Increasingly, the federal government sets\nstandards of education, health and safety.\n\nHow did it happen? How did our national government grow from a servant\nwith sharply limited powers into a master with virtually unlimited\npower?\n\nIn part, we were swindled. There are occasions when we have elevated\nmen and political parties to power that promised to restore limited\ngovernment and then proceeded, after their election, to expand the\nactivities of government. But let us be honest with ourselves. Broken\npromises are not the major causes of our trouble. _Kept_ promises are.\nAll too often we have put men in office who have suggested spending a\nlittle more on this, a little more on that, who have proposed a new\nwelfare program, who have thought of another variety of \u201csecurity.\u201d We\nhave taken the bait, preferring to put off to another day the recapture\nof freedom and the restoration of our constitutional system. We have\ngone the way of many a democratic society that has lost its freedom by\npersuading itself that if \u201cthe people\u201d rule, all is well.\n\nThe Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, probably the most clairvoyant\npolitical observer of modern times, saw the danger when he visited this\ncountry in the 1830\u2019s. Even then he foresaw decay for a society that\ntended to put more emphasis on its democracy than on its republicanism.\nHe predicted that America would produce, not tyrants but \u201cguardians.\u201d\nAnd that the American people would \u201cconsole themselves for being in\ntutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians.\nEvery man allows himself to be put in lead-strings, because he sees\nthat it is not a person nor a class of persons, but the people at large\nthat hold the end of his chain.\u201d\n\nOur tendency to concentrate power in the hands of a few men deeply\nconcerns me. We can be conquered by bombs or by subversion; but we\ncan also be conquered by neglect--by ignoring the Constitution and\ndisregarding the principles of limited government. Our defenses against\nthe accumulation of unlimited power in Washington are in poorer shape,\nI fear, than our defenses against the aggressive designs of Moscow.\nLike so many other nations before us, we may succumb through internal\nweakness rather than fall before a foreign foe.\n\nI am convinced that most Americans now want to reverse the trend. I\nthink that concern for our vanishing freedoms is genuine. I think that\nthe people\u2019s uneasiness in the stifling omnipresence of government has\nturned into something approaching alarm. But bemoaning the evil will\nnot drive it back, and accusing fingers will not shrink government.\n\n_The turn will come when we entrust the conduct of our affairs to men\nwho understand that their first duty as public officials is to divest\nthemselves of the power they have been given._ It will come when\nAmericans, in hundreds of communities throughout the nation, decide\nto put the man in office who is pledged to enforce the Constitution\nand restore the Republic. Who will proclaim in a campaign speech:\n\u201cI have little interest in streamlining government or in making it\nmore efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to\npromote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass\nlaws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but\nto cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have\nfailed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted\nfinancial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is\n\u2018needed\u2019 before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally\npermissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my\nconstituents\u2019 \u2018interests,\u2019 I shall reply that I was informed their main\ninterest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I\ncan.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER THREE States\u2019 Rights\n\n\nThe Governor of New York, in 1930, pointed out that the Constitution\ndoes not empower the Congress to deal with \u201ca great number of ... vital\nproblems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of\nbanks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of\nsocial welfare, and a dozen other important features.\u201d And he added\nthat \u201cWashington must not be encouraged to interfere\u201d in these areas.\n\nFranklin Roosevelt\u2019s rapid conversion from Constitutionalism to the\ndoctrine of unlimited government, is an oft-told story. But I am here\nconcerned not so much by the abandonment of States\u2019 Rights by the\nnational Democratic Party--an event that occurred some years ago when\nthat party was captured by the Socialist ideologues in and about the\nlabor movement--as by the unmistakable tendency of the Republican Party\nto adopt the same course. The result is that today _neither_ of our two\nparties maintains a meaningful commitment to the principle of States\u2019\nRights. Thus, the cornerstone of the Republic, our chief bulwark\nagainst the encroachment of individual freedom by Big Government, is\nfast disappearing under the piling sands of absolutism.\n\nThe Republican Party, to be sure, gives lip-service to States\u2019 Rights.\nWe often _talk_ about \u201creturning to the States their rightful powers\u201d;\nthe Administration has even gone so far as to sponsor a federal-state\nconference on the problem. But deeds are what count, and I regret\nto say that in actual practice, the Republican Party, like the\nDemocratic Party, summons the coercive power of the federal government\nwhenever national leaders conclude that the States are not performing\nsatisfactorily.\n\nLet us focus attention on one method of federal interference--one\nthat tends to be neglected in much of the public discussion of the\nproblem. In recent years the federal government has continued, and in\nmany cases has increased, federal \u201cgrants-in-aid\u201d to the States in a\nnumber of areas in which the Constitution recognizes the exclusive\njurisdiction of the States. These grants are called \u201cmatching funds\u201d\nand are designed to \u201cstimulate\u201d state spending in health, education,\nwelfare, conservation or any other area in which the federal government\ndecides there is a need for national action. If the States agree to\nput up money for these purposes, the federal government undertakes to\nmatch the appropriation according to a ratio prescribed by Congress.\nSometimes the ratio is fifty-fifty; often the federal government\ncontributes over half the cost.\n\nThere are two things to note about these programs. The first is\nthat they are _federal_ programs--they are conceived by the federal\ngovernment both as to purpose and as to extent. The second is that\nthe \u201cstimulative\u201d grants are, in effect, a mixture of blackmail and\nbribery. The States are told to go along with the program \u201cor else.\u201d\nOnce the federal government has offered matching funds, it is unlikely,\nas a practical matter, that a member of a State Legislature will turn\ndown his State\u2019s fair share of revenue collected from all of the\nStates. Understandably, many legislators feel that to refuse aid would\nbe political suicide. This is an indirect form of coercion, but it is\neffective nonetheless.\n\nA more direct method of coercion is for the federal government to\n_threaten_ to move in unless state governments take action that\nWashington deems appropriate. Not so long ago, for example, the\nSecretary of Labor gave the States a lecture on the wisdom of enacting\n\u201cup-to-date\u201d unemployment compensation laws. He made no effort to\ndisguise the alternative: if the States failed to act, the federal\ngovernment would.\n\nHere are some examples of the \u201cstimulative\u201d approach. Late in 1957\na \u201cJoint Federal-State Action Committee\u201d recommended that certain\nmatching funds programs be \u201creturned\u201d to the States on the scarcely\ndisguised grounds that the States, in the view of the Committee, had\nlearned to live up to their responsibilities. These are the areas\nin which the States were learning to behave: \u201cvocational education\u201d\nprograms in agriculture, home economics, practical nursing, and the\nfisheries trade; local sewage projects; slum clearance and urban\nrenewal; and enforcement of health and safety standards in connection\nwith the atomic energy program.\n\nNow the point is not that Congress failed to act on these\nrecommendations, or that the Administration gave them only half-hearted\nsupport; but rather that the federal government had no business\nentering these fields in the first place, and thus had no business\ntaking upon itself the prerogative of judging the States\u2019 performance.\nThe Republican Party should have said this plainly and forthrightly and\ndemanded the immediate withdrawal of the federal government.\n\nWe can best understand our error, I think, by examining the theory\nbehind it. I have already alluded to the book, _A Republican Looks\nat His Party_, which is an elaborate rationalization of the \u201cModern\nRepublican\u201d approach to current problems. (It does the job just as\nwell, I might add, for the Democrats\u2019 approach.) Mr. Larson devotes\na good deal of space to the question of States\u2019 Rights. He contends\nthat while there is \u201ca general presumption\u201d in favor of States\u2019\nRights, thanks to the Tenth Amendment, this presumption must give\nway whenever it appears to the federal authorities that the States\nare not responding satisfactorily to \u201cthe needs of the people.\u201d This\nis a paraphrase of his position but not, I think, an unjust one. And\nif this approach appears to be a high-handed way of dealing with an\nexplicit constitutional provision, Mr. Larson justifies the argument by\nsummoning the concept that \u201cfor every right there is a corresponding\nduty.\u201d \u201cWhen we speak of States\u2019 Rights,\u201d he writes, \u201cwe should never\nforget to add that there go with those rights the corresponding States\u2019\nresponsibilities.\u201d Therefore, he concludes, if the States fail to\ndo their duty, they have only themselves to blame when the federal\ngovernment intervenes.\n\nThe trouble with this argument is that it treats the Constitution of\nthe United States as a kind of handbook in political theory, to be\nheeded or ignored depending on how it fits the plans of contemporary\nfederal officials. The Tenth Amendment is _not_ \u201ca general assumption,\u201d\nbut a prohibitory rule of law. The Tenth Amendment recognizes the\nStates\u2019 _jurisdiction_ in certain areas. States\u2019 Rights means that the\nStates have a right to act or _not to act_, as they see fit, in the\nareas reserved to them. The States may have duties corresponding to\nthese rights, but the duties are owed to the people of the States, not\nto the federal government. Therefore, the recourse lies not with the\nfederal government, which is not sovereign, but with the people who\nare, and who have full power to take disciplinary action. If the people\nare unhappy with say, their State\u2019s disability insurance program, they\ncan bring pressure to bear on their state officials and, if that fails,\nthey can elect a new set of officials. And if, in the unhappy event\nthey should wish to divest themselves of this responsibility, they can\namend the Constitution. The Constitution, I repeat, draws a sharp and\nclear line between federal jurisdiction and state jurisdiction. The\nfederal government\u2019s failure to recognize that line has been a crushing\nblow to the principle of limited government.\n\nBut again, I caution against a defensive, or apologetic, appeal to\nthe Constitution. There is a _reason_ for its reservation of States\u2019\nRights. Not only does it prevent the accumulation of power in a central\ngovernment that is remote from the people and relatively immune from\npopular restraints; it also recognizes the principle that essentially\nlocal problems are best dealt with by the people most directly\nconcerned. Who knows better than New Yorkers how much and what kind of\npublicly-financed slum clearance in New York City is needed and can be\nafforded? Who knows better than Nebraskans whether that State has an\nadequate nursing program? Who knows better than Arizonans the kind of\nschool program that is needed to educate their children? The people\nof my own State--and I am confident that I speak for the majority of\nthem--have long since seen through the spurious suggestion that federal\naid comes \u201cfree.\u201d They know that the money comes out of their own\npockets, and that it is returned to them minus a broker\u2019s fee taken by\nthe federal bureaucracy. They know, too, that the power to decide how\nthat money shall be spent is withdrawn from them and exercised by some\nplanning board deep in the caverns of one of the federal agencies. They\nunderstand this represents a great and perhaps irreparable loss--not\nonly in their wealth, but in their priceless liberty.\n\nNothing could so far advance the cause of freedom as for state\nofficials throughout the land to assert their rightful claims to lost\nstate power; and for the federal government to withdraw promptly and\ntotally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserved to the\nstates.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FOUR And Civil Rights\n\n\nAn attempt has been made in recent years to disparage the principle of\nStates\u2019 Rights by equating it with defense of the South\u2019s position on\nracial integration. I have already indicated that the reach of States\u2019\nRights is much broader than that--that it affects Northerners as well\nas Southerners, and concerns many matters that have nothing to do with\nthe race question. Still, it is quite true that the integration issue\nis affected by the States\u2019 Rights principle, and that the South\u2019s\nposition on the issue is, today, the most conspicuous expression of\nthe principle. So much so that the country is now in the grips of a\nspirited and sometimes ugly controversy over an imagined conflict\nbetween States\u2019 Rights, on the one hand, and what are called \u201ccivil\nrights\u201d on the other.\n\nI say an imagined conflict because I deny that there _can_ be a\nconflict between States\u2019 Rights, properly defined--and civil rights,\nproperly defined. If States\u2019 \u201cRights\u201d are so asserted as to encroach\nupon individual rights that are protected by valid federal laws, then\nthe exercise of state power is a nullity. Conversely, if individual\n\u201crights\u201d are so asserted as to infringe upon valid state power, then\nthe assertion of those \u201crights\u201d is a nullity. The rights themselves\ndo not clash. The conflict arises from a failure to define the two\ncategories of rights correctly, and to assert them lawfully.\n\nStates\u2019 Rights are easy enough to define. The Tenth Amendment does\nit succinctly: \u201cThe powers not delegated to the United States by the\nConstitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the\nStates respectively, or to the people.\u201d\n\nCivil rights should be no harder. In fact, however--thanks to\nextravagant and shameless misuse by people who ought to know better--it\nis one of the most badly understood concepts in modern political\nusage. Civil rights is frequently used synonymously with \u201chuman\nrights\u201d--or with \u201cnatural rights.\u201d As often as not, it is simply a\nname for describing an activity that someone deems politically or\nsocially desirable. A sociologist writes a paper proposing to abolish\nsome inequity, or a politician makes a speech about it--and, behold,\na new \u201ccivil right\u201d is born! The Supreme Court has displayed the same\ncreative powers.\n\nA _civil_ right is a right that is asserted and is therefore protected\nby some valid law. It may be asserted by the common law, or by local\nor federal statutes, or by the Constitution; _but unless a right\nis incorporated in the law, it is not a civil right and is not\nenforceable by the instruments of the civil law_. There may be some\nrights--\u201cnatural,\u201d \u201chuman,\u201d or otherwise--that _should_ also be civil\nrights. But if we desire to give such rights the protection of the law,\nour recourse is to a legislature or to the amendment procedures of the\nConstitution. We must not look to politicians, or sociologists--or the\ncourts--to correct the deficiency.\n\nIn the field of racial relations, there are some rights that are\nclearly protected by valid laws and are therefore \u201ccivil\u201d rights. One\nof them is the right to vote. The Fifteenth Amendment provides that no\none shall be denied the franchise on account of race, color or previous\ncondition of servitude. Similarly with certain legal privileges\nenforced by the Fourteenth Amendment. The legislative history of that\namendment makes it clear (I quote from the Civil Rights Act of 1866\nwhich the Amendment was designed to legitimize) that people of all\nraces shall be equally entitled \u201cto make and enforce contracts, to\nsue, be parties, and give evidence, to inherit, to purchase, lease,\nsell, hold and convey real and personal property and to full and\nequal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons\nand property.\u201d After the passage of that Act and the Amendment, all\npersons, Negroes included, had a \u201ccivil\u201d right to these protections.\n\nIt is otherwise, let us note, with education. For the federal\nConstitution does _not_ require the States to maintain racially mixed\nschools. Despite the recent holding of the Supreme Court, I am firmly\nconvinced--not only that integrated schools are not required--but\nthat the Constitution does not permit any interference whatsoever by\nthe federal government in the field of education. It may be just or\nwise or expedient for negro children to attend the same schools as\nwhite children, but they do not have a civil right to do so which is\nprotected by the federal constitution, or which is enforceable by the\nfederal government.\n\nThe intentions of the founding fathers in this matter are beyond\nany doubt: _no powers regarding education were given the federal\ngovernment_. Consequently, under the Tenth Amendment, jurisdiction over\nthe entire field was reserved to the States. The remaining question is\nwhether the Fourteenth Amendment--concretely, that amendment\u2019s \u201cequal\nprotection\u201d clause--modified the original prohibition against federal\nintervention.\n\nTo my knowledge it has never been seriously argued--the argument\ncertainly was not made by the Supreme Court--that the authors of the\nFourteenth Amendment intended to alter the Constitutional scheme\nwith regard to education. Indeed, in the famous school integration\ndecision, _Brown v. Board of Education_ (1954), the Supreme Court\njustices expressly acknowledged that they were not being guided by the\nintentions of the amendment\u2019s authors. \u201c_In approaching this problem_,\u201d\nChief Justice Warren said \u201c_we cannot turn the clock back to 1868 when\nthe amendment was adopted.... We must consider public education in the\nlight of its full development and in its present place in American life\nthroughout the nation._\u201d In effect, the Court said that what matters is\nnot the ideas of the men who wrote the Constitution, but the _Court\u2019s_\nideas. It was only by engrafting its own views onto the established law\nof the land that the Court was able to reach the decision it did.\n\nThe intentions of the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s authors are perfectly\nclear. Consider these facts. 1. During the entire congressional\ndebate on the Fourteenth Amendment it was never once suggested by any\nproponent of the amendment that it would outlaw segregated schools. 2.\nAt the same time that it approved the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress\nestablished schools in Washington in Georgetown \u201cfor the sole use of\n... colored children.\u201d 3. In all the debates on the amendment by the\nState Legislatures there was only one legislator, a man in Indiana, who\nthought the amendment would affect schools. 4. The great majority of\nthe States that approved the amendment permitted or required segregated\nschools at the very time they approved the amendment. There is not\nroom here for exhaustive treatment of this evidence, but the facts are\nwell documented, and they are all we have to know about the Fourteenth\nAmendment\u2019s bearing on this problem. The amendment was not intended\nto, and therefore it did not outlaw racially separate schools. It was\nnot intended to, and therefore it did not, authorize _any_ federal\nintervention in the field of education.\n\nI am therefore not impressed by the claim that the Supreme Court\u2019s\ndecision on school integration is the law of the land. _The\nConstitution, and the laws \u201cmade in pursuance thereof,\u201d are the\n\u201csupreme law of the land\u201d_. The Constitution is what its authors\nintended it to be and said it was--not what the Supreme Court says\nit is. If we condone the practice of substituting our own intentions\nfor those of the Constitution\u2019s framers, we reject, in effect, the\nprinciple of Constitutional Government: we endorse a rule of men, not\nof laws.\n\nI have great respect for the Supreme Court as an institution, but I\ncannot believe that I display that respect by submitting abjectly to\nabuses of power by the Court, and by condoning its unconstitutional\ntrespass into the legislative sphere of government. The Congress and\nthe States, equally with the Supreme Court, are obliged to interpret\nand comply with the Constitution according to their own lights. I\ntherefore support all efforts by the States, excluding violence of\ncourse, to preserve their rightful powers over education.\n\nAs for the Congress, I would hope that the national legislature would\nhelp clarify the problem by proposing to the States a Constitutional\namendment that would reaffirm the States\u2019 exclusive jurisdiction in the\nfield of education. This amendment would, in my judgment, assert what\nis already provided unmistakably by the Constitution; but it would put\nthe matter beyond any further question.\n\nIt so happens that I am in agreement with the _objectives_ of the\nSupreme Court as stated in the _Brown_ decision. I believe that it is\nboth wise and just for negro children to attend the same schools as\nwhites, and that to deny them this opportunity carries with it strong\nimplications of inferiority. I am not prepared, however, to impose\nthat judgment of mine on the people of Mississippi or South Carolina,\nor to tell them what methods should be adopted and what pace should be\nkept in striving toward that goal. That is their business, not mine.\nI believe that the problem of race relations, like all social and\ncultural problems, is best handled by the people directly concerned.\nSocial and cultural change, however desirable, should not be effected\nby the engines of national power. Let us, through persuasion and\neducation, seek to improve institutions we deem defective. But let us,\nin doing so, respect the orderly processes of the law. Any other course\nenthrones tyrants and dooms freedom.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER FIVE Freedom For The Farmer\n\n\n  _\u201c... supervision of agriculture and other concerns of a similar\n  nature ... which are proper to be provided for by local legislation,\n  can never be desirable cares of a general jurisdiction. It is\n  therefore improbable that there should exist a disposition in the\n  federal councils to usurp the powers with which they are connected;\n  because the attempt to exercise those powers would be as troublesome\n  as they were nugatory.\u201d_ Alexander Hamilton in the Federalist Papers,\n  No. 17.\n\nHamilton was wrong in his prediction as to what men would do, but\nquite right in foreseeing the consequences of their foolhardiness.\nFederal intervention in agriculture has, indeed, proved \u201ctroublesome.\u201d\nDisregard of the Constitution in this field has brought about the\ninevitable loss of personal freedom; and it has created economic chaos.\nUnmanageable surpluses, an immense tax burden, high consumer prices,\nvexatious controls--I doubt if the folly of ignoring the principle of\nlimited government has ever been more convincingly demonstrated.\n\nWe have blundered on so grand a scale that even our critical faculties\nseem to have been damaged in the process. No man who is familiar with\nthe subject will deny that the policy of price supports and production\ncontrols has been a colossal failure. Yet, today, some of our best\nminds have no better solution to the problem than to raise the supports\nand increase the controls!\n\nThe teaching of the Constitution on this matter is perfectly clear.\n_No power over agriculture was given to any branch of the national\ngovernment._ The sponsors of the first Agriculture Adjustment Act,\npassed in 1933, tried to justify the law under the so-called general\nwelfare clause of the Constitution. The Supreme Court promptly struck\ndown that legislation on the grounds that the phrase, \u201cgeneral\nwelfare,\u201d was simply a qualification of the taxing power and did not\ngive Congress the power to _control_ anything. \u201cThe regulation (of\nagricultural production),\u201d the Court said in United States v. Butler\n(1936) \u201cis not in fact voluntary. The farmer, of course, may refuse to\ncomply [a privilege not given him under present legislation], but the\nprice of such refusal is loss of benefits ... the power to confer or\nwithhold unlimited benefits is the power to coerce or destroy....\u201d\n\nThe New Deal Congress replied by enacting substantially identical\nlegislation, the second AAA, and now sought to justify the program\nas a \u201cregulation of interstate commerce.\u201d This was a transparent\nevasion of the Butler case; but the Supreme Court, which by this time\nwas under heavy political fire for having thwarted the \u201cRoosevelt\nRevolution,\u201d made one of its celebrated about-faces and upheld the new\nact. The federal government has usurped many powers under the guise\nof \u201cregulating commerce,\u201d but this instance of distorting the plain\nmeaning of the Constitution\u2019s language is perhaps the most flagrant on\nrecord.\n\nIn the case that upheld the second AAA, _Wickard_ v. _Filburn_, (1942),\na farmer had been fined for planting 23 acres of wheat, instead of the\neleven acres the government had allotted him--notwithstanding that the\n\u201cexcess\u201d wheat had been consumed _on his own farm_. Now how in the\nworld, the farmer wanted to know, can it be said that the wheat I feed\nmy own stock is in interstate commerce? That\u2019s easy, the Court said. If\nyou had _not_ used your own wheat for feed, you might have bought feed\nfrom someone else, and that purchase might have affected the price of\nwheat that _was_ transported in interstate commerce! By this bizarre\nreasoning the Court made the commerce clause as wide as the world\nand nullified the Constitution\u2019s clear reservation to the States of\njurisdiction over agriculture.\n\nThe tragedy, of course, is that the federal government\u2019s\nunconstitutional intrusion into Agriculture has not brought us any\ncloser to a solution of the \u201cfarm problem.\u201d The problem, when federal\nintervention began, was declining farm incomes. Today, many farm\nincomes are still low. But now we have additional problems--production\ncontrols that restrict freedom, high consumer prices, huge crop\nsurpluses and a gigantic tax bill that is running close to six billion\ndollars a year. No matter what variant of the price support-production\ncontrol approach we adopt, the solution to these problems continues to\nelude us.\n\nThe reason government intervention has created more problems than it\nhas solved is quite simple. _Farm production, like any other production\nis best controlled by the natural operation of the free market._ If the\nnation\u2019s farmers are permitted to sell their produce freely, at price\nconsumers are willing to pay, they will, under the law of supply and\ndemand, end up producing roughly what can be consumed in national and\nworld markets. And if farmers, in general, find they are not getting\nhigh enough prices for their produce, some of them will move into other\nkinds of economic activity. The result will be reduced agricultural\nproduction and higher incomes for those who remain on the farms. If,\nhowever, the government interferes with this natural economic process,\nand pegs prices higher than the consumer is willing to pay, the result\nwill be, in Hamilton\u2019s phrase, \u201ctroublesome.\u201d The nation will pay\nexorbitant prices for work that is not needed and for produce that\ncannot be consumed.\n\nIn recent years, the government has sought to alleviate the problem\nof over-production by the soil bank and acreage retirement programs.\nActually, these programs are simply a modern version of the hog-killing\nand potato-burning schemes promoted by Henry Wallace during the New\nDeal. And they have been no more successful in reducing surpluses\nthan their predecessors. But there is also a positive evil in these\nprograms: in effect, they reward people for _not producing_. For a\nnation that is expressing great concern over its \u201ceconomic growth,\u201d I\ncannot conceive of a more absurd and self-defeating policy than one\nwhich subsidizes non-production.\n\nThe problem of surpluses will not be solved until we recognize that\ntechnological progress and other factors have made it possible for\nthe needs of America, and those of accessible world markets, to be\nsatisfied by a far fewer number of farmers than now till the soil. I\ncannot believe that any serious student of the farm problems fails to\nappreciate this fact. What has been lacking is not an understanding of\na problem that is really quite impossible not to understand, but the\npolitical courage to do something about it.\n\nDoing something about it means--and there can be no equivocation\nhere--_prompt and final termination of the farm subsidy program_. The\nonly way to persuade farmers to enter other fields of endeavor is to\nstop paying inefficient farmers for produce that cannot be sold at free\nmarket prices. Is this a cruel solution? Is it heartless to permit\nthe natural laws of economics to determine how many farmers there\nshall be in the same way that those laws determine how many bankers,\nor druggists, or watchmakers there shall be? It was never considered\nso before the subsidy program began. Let us remember that the movement\n_from_ the farm _to_ other fields of endeavor has been proceeding in\nthis country since its beginning--and with good effects, not ill.\n\nI cannot believe that this course will lose politicians as many votes\nas some of them seem to fear. Most farmers want to stand on their own\nfeet. They are prepared to take their chances in the free market. They\nhave a more intimate knowledge than most of us of the consequences of\nunlimited government power, and so, it would seem, a greater interest\nthan most in returning agriculture to freedom and economic sanity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SIX Freedom For Labor\n\n\nIf I had to select the vote I regard as the most important of my Senate\ncareer it would be the one I cast on the Kennedy-Ervin \u201cLabor Reform\u201d\nBill of 1959. The Senate passed the measure 90-1; the dissenting vote\nwas mine. The measure had been advertised as a cure-all for the evils\nuncovered by the McClellan Committee investigation. I opposed it\nbecause I felt certain that legislation which pretended to respond to\nthe popular demand for safeguards against union power, but actually did\nnot do so, would preclude the possibility of meaningful legislation for\nsome time to come.\n\nThat opinion was vindicated later on. The House of Representatives\nrejected Kennedy-Ervin, and substituted in its place a much better\nmeasure, the Landrum-Griffin bill. The ensuing conference between\nrepresentatives of the two houses made only minor changes in the House\nversion; I would guess that 90% of the original Landrum-Griffin bill\nsurvived in the conferees\u2019 report. The Senate adopted the report with\nonly two dissenting votes--proof to me that my initial protest had\nbeen wise.\n\nBut the protest still holds: though the Landrum-Griffin Bill was an\nimprovement over the Kennedy measure, Congress has still to come to\ngrips with the real evil in the Labor field. Graft and corruption are\nsymptoms of the illness that besets the labor movement, not the cause\nof it. _The cause is the enormous economic and political power now\nconcentrated in the hands of union leaders._\n\nSuch power hurts the nation\u2019s economy by forcing on employers\ncontract terms that encourage inefficiency, lower production and high\nprices--all of which result in a lower standard of living for the\nAmerican people.\n\nIt corrupts the nation\u2019s political life by exerting undue influence on\nthe selection of public officials.\n\nIt gravely compromises the freedom of millions of individual workers\nwho are able to register a dissent against the practice of union\nleaders only at the risk of losing their jobs.\n\nAll of us have heard the charge that to thus criticize the power of\nBig Labor is to be anti-labor and anti-union. This is an argument that\nserves the interest of union leaders, but it does not usually fit the\nfacts, and it certainly does not do justice to my views. I believe that\nunionism, kept within its proper and natural bounds, accomplishes\na positive good for the country. Unions _can_ be an instrument for\nachieving economic justice for the working man. Moreover, they are an\nalternative to, and thus discourage State Socialism. Most important\nof all, they are an expression of freedom. Trade unions properly\nconceived, are an expression of man\u2019s inalienable right to associate\nwith other men for the achievement of legitimate objectives.\n\n_The natural function of a trade union and the one for which it was\nhistorically conceived is to represent those employees who want\ncollective representation in bargaining with their employers over\nterms of employment._ But note that this function is perverted the\nmoment a union claims the right to represent employees who do not want\nrepresentation, _or_ conducts activities that have nothing to do with\nterms of employment (e.g. political activities), _or_ tries to deal\nwith an industry as a whole instead of with individual employers.\n\nAs America turned increasingly, in the latter half of the nineteenth\ncentury, from an agricultural nation into an industrial one, and as the\nsize of business enterprises expanded, individual wage earners found\nthemselves at a distinct disadvantage in dealing with their employers\nover terms of employment. The economic power of the large enterprises,\nas compared with that of the individual employee, was such that wages\nand conditions of employment were pretty much what the employer decided\nthey would be. Under these conditions, as a means of increasing their\neconomic power, many employees chose to band together and create a\ncommon agent for negotiating with their employers.\n\nAs time went on, we found that the working man\u2019s right to bargain\nthrough a collective agent needed legal protection; accordingly\nCongress enacted laws--notably certain provisions of the Clayton\nAct, the Norris LaGuardia Act and the Wagner Act--to make sure that\nemployees would be able to bargain collectively.\n\nThis is not the place to examine those laws in detail. It is clear,\nhowever, that they have _over_-accomplished their purpose. Thanks to\nsome unwise provisions and to the absence of others that should have\nbeen included, the delicate balance of power we sought to achieve\nbetween labor and management has shifted, in avalanche proportions,\nto labor\u2019s advantage. Or, more correctly to the advantage of union\nleaders. This mammoth concentration of power in the hands of a few men\nis, I repeat, a grave threat to the nation\u2019s economic stability, and to\nthe nation\u2019s political processes. More important, it has taken from the\nindividual wage earner a large portion of his freedom.\n\nThe time has come, not to abolish unions or deprive them of deserved\ngains; but to redress the balance--to restore unions to their proper\nrole in a free society.\n\nWe have seen that unions perform their natural function when three\nconditions are observed: association with the union is voluntary; the\nunion confines its activities to collective bargaining; the bargaining\nis conducted with the employer of the workers concerned. Let us briefly\ntreat with each of these conditions, noting the extent to which they\nare violated today, and the remedial action we are called upon to take.\n\n_Freedom of Association._ Here the argument is so plain that I wonder\nwhy elaboration is necessary. What could be more fundamental than the\nfreedom to associate with other men, or not to associate, as each\nman\u2019s conscience and reason dictates? Yet compulsory unionism is\nthe rule rather than the exception today in the ranks of organized\nlabor. Millions of laboring men are required to join the union that\nis the recognized bargaining agent at the place they work. Union\nshop agreements deny to these laboring men the right to decide for\nthemselves what union they will join, or indeed, whether they will join\nat all. The exercise of freedom for many of these citizens, means the\nloss of their jobs.\n\nHere is the kind of thing that can happen as the result of compulsory\nunionism. X, a family man in Pennsylvania had been a union member in\ngood standing for over twenty years. When the United Electrical Workers\nbecame the recognized bargaining agent at his plant, he refused to\njoin on the grounds the UEW was Communist dominated--a judgment that\nhad been made by the CIO itself when it expelled the UEW in 1950. The\nresult, since his employer had a union shop agreement with the UEW, was\nthat X lost his job.\n\n_The remedy here is to give freedom of association legal protection._\nAnd that is why I strongly favor enactment of State right-to-work\nlaws which forbid contracts that make union membership a condition of\nemployment. These laws are aimed at removing a great blight on the\ncontemporary American scene, and I am at a loss to understand why so\nmany people who so often profess concern for \u201ccivil rights\u201d and \u201ccivil\nliberties\u201d are vehemently opposed to them. Freedom of association is\none of the natural rights of man. Clearly, therefore, it should also\nbe a \u201ccivil\u201d right. Right-to-work laws derive from the natural law:\nthey are simply an attempt to give freedom of association the added\nprotection of civil law.\n\nI am well aware of the \u201cfree loader\u201d argument, so often advanced by\nunion leaders in defense of compulsory unionism. The contention is that\na man ought not to enjoy the benefits of an organization\u2019s activities\nunless he contributes his fair share of their cost. I am unaware,\nhowever, of any other organization or institution that seeks to enforce\nthis theory by compulsion. The Red Cross benefits all of us, directly\nor indirectly, but _no one suggests that Red Cross donations be\ncompulsory_. It is one thing to say that a man _should_ contribute to\nan association that is purportedly acting in his interest; it is quite\nanother thing to say that he _must_ do so. I believe that a man ought\nto join a union if it is a good union that is serving the interests of\nits members. I believe, moreover, that most men _will_ give support to\na union _provided it is deserving of that support_. There will always\nbe some men, of course, who will try to sponge off others; but let us\nnot express our contempt for _some_ men by denying freedom of choice to\n_all_ men.\n\nThe union leaders\u2019 further argument that right to work legislation is a\n\u201cunion-busting\u201d device is simply not borne out by the facts. A recent\nsurvey disclosed that _in all of the nineteen States which have enacted\nright-to-work laws union membership increased after the right-to-work\nlaws were passed_. It is also well to remember that the union movement\nthroughout the world has prospered when it has been put on a voluntary\nbasis. Contrary to popular belief compulsory unionism is not typical\nof the labor movement in the free world. It prevails in the United\nStates and England, but in the other countries of Western Europe and in\nAustralia, union membership is generally on a voluntary basis. Indeed\nthe greatest percentage of unionized workers are found in countries\nthat prohibit compulsion by law. The unions in those countries operate\non the principle that a union is stronger and better if its members\ngive their adherence of their own free will.\n\nHere, it seems to me, is the sensible way to combat graft and\ncorruption in the labor movement. As long as union leaders can\n_force_ workers to join their organization, they have no incentive\nto act responsibly. But if workers could choose to belong or not to\nbelong depending on how the union performed, the pressure to stamp\nout malpractice would become irresistible. If unions had to earn the\nadherence of their members the result would be--not only more freedom\nfor the working man--but much less dishonesty and high handedness in\nthe management of the union affairs.\n\n_Political Freedom._ One way we exercise political freedom is to vote\nfor the candidate of our choice. Another way is to use our money to\ntry to persuade other voters to make a similar choice--that is, to\ncontribute to our candidate\u2019s campaign. If either of these freedoms is\nviolated, the consequences are very grave not only for the individual\nvoter and contributor, but for the society whose free political\nprocesses depend on a wide distribution of political power.\n\nIt is in the second of these areas, that of political contributions,\nthat labor unions seriously compromise American freedom. They do this\nby spending the money of union members without prior consultation for\npurposes the individual members may or may not approve of, purposes\nthat are decided upon by a relatively small number of union leaders.\nProbably the greatest spender in the labor movement is the powerful\nAFL/CIO Committee on Political Education (COPE) which is supported in\nits \u201ceducational\u201d work entirely by union general funds.\n\nIt is impossible to say just how much unions spend on political\ncampaigns; certainly one can\u2019t tell from the amounts officially\nreported, which invariably present a grossly distorted picture. In\n1956, for example, Labor officially acknowledged expenditures of\n$941,271. According to that official report, $79,939 of the total\nwas spent in the State of Michigan. However, a Senate investigating\ncommittee obtained evidence that in that year each of Michigan\u2019s\n700,000 union members had been assessed $1.20 as a contribution to\na \u201ccitizenship fund,\u201d and that this money was made available for\npolitical activities. This suggests that labor spent, from that one\nsource alone, almost a million dollars in Michigan instead of $79,000.\nBy projecting the difference on a nation-wide scale we get a more\nrealistic idea of the size of Labor\u2019s political contributions.\n\nUnion political activity is not confined, of course, to direct\nfinancial contributions. In fact, this is one of its smallest\nendeavors. Unions provide manpower for election day chores--for making\nphone calls, driving cars, manning the polls and so on. Often the union\nmembers who perform these chores are reimbursed for their time-off\nout of union funds. Unions also sponsor radio and television programs\nand distribute a huge volume of printed material designed to support\nthe candidate of the union\u2019s choice. In short, they perform all the\nfunctions of a regular party organization.\n\nNow the evil here is twofold. For one thing, the union\u2019s decision\nwhether to support candidate X or candidate Y--whether to help the\nRepublican Party or the Democratic Party--is not reached by a poll of\nthe union membership. It is made by a handful of top union officers.\nThese few men are thus able to wield tremendous political power in\nvirtue of their ability to spend other people\u2019s money. No one else in\nAmerica is so privileged.\n\nThe other evil is more serious. Individual union members are denied the\nright to decide for themselves how to spend their money. Certainly a\nmoral issue is at stake here. _Is it morally permissible to take the\nmoney of a Republican union member, for example, and spend it on behalf\nof a Democrat?_ The travesty is deeper, of course, when the money takes\nthe form of compulsory union dues. Under union shop conditions, the\nonly way an individual can avoid contributing to the political campaign\nof a candidate whom he may not approve is to give up his job.\n\nThe passage of right-to-work laws will help the situation. But putting\nunionism on a voluntary basis is only part of the answer. For even\nthough a man can leave or refuse to join a union that spends money for\npurposes that he does not approve, there may be other factors that\nwould dissuade him from doing so. In many communities strong economic\nand social pressures are exerted on behalf of joining a union--quite\naside from the threat of loss of employment. As a result, a man may\ndecide to join a union notwithstanding his disapproval of its political\nactivities. And the question remains: Should that man\u2019s union dues\nbe used for political purposes? The answer is clearly, no. Unions\nexist, presumably to confer economic advantages on their members, not\nto perform political services for them. Unions should therefore be\nforbidden to engage in any kind of political activity. I believe that\nthe Federal Corrupt Practices Act _does_ forbid such activity. That\nlegislation has been circumvented by the \u201ceducation\u201d approach and other\ndevices; and Congress and the courts, in effect, have looked the other\nway. The only remedy, it appears, is new legislation.\n\n_In order to achieve the widest possible distribution of political\npower, financial contributions to political campaigns should be made\nby individuals and individuals alone._ I see no reason for labor\nunions--or corporations--to participate in politics. Both were created\nfor economic purposes and their activities should be restricted\naccordingly.\n\n_Economic Freedom._ Americans have been much disturbed in recent\nyears by the apparent power of Big Labor to impose its will on the\nnation\u2019s economic life whenever the impulse strikes. The recent\nsteel controversy, and the terms of its settlement, are the latest\nillustration of Labor\u2019s ability to get its way notwithstanding\nthe cost to the rest of society. When the strike began, neutral\nobservers--including government economists normally friendly to the\nunions--agreed that the Steel Workers\u2019 wage demands were exorbitant and\nwould inevitably cause further inflation; and that the steel companies\nwere quite right in insisting that certain \u201cwork rules\u201d promoted\ninefficiency and retarded production. Nevertheless, the steel companies\nwere forced to accept a settlement that postponed indefinitely revision\nof work rules and granted a large portion of the union\u2019s wage demands.\n\nThe reason the union won is quite simple: it posed to the country the\nchoice of tolerating stoppages in steel production that would imperil\nnational security, or of consenting to an abandonment of the collective\nbargaining process. Since neither the steel companies nor the country\nat large wanted to resort to compulsory arbitration, the alternative\nwas to give the unions what they asked. In this situation, the only\npower superior to union power was government power, and the government\nchose to yield.\n\nOne way to check the unions\u2019 power is for the government to dictate\nthrough compulsory arbitration, the terms of employment throughout\nan entire industry. I am opposed to this course because it simply\ntransfers economic power from the unions to the government, and\nencourages State Socialism. The other way is to disperse union power\nand thus extend freedom in labor-management relations.\n\nEighty years ago the nation was faced with a comparable concentration\nof economic power. Large corporations, by gaining monopoly control\nover entire industries, had nullified the laws of competition that\nare conducive to freedom. We responded to that challenge by outlawing\nmonopolies through the Sherman Act and other anti-trust legislation.\n_These laws, however, have never been applied to labor unions._ And I\nam at a loss to understand why. If it is wrong for a single corporation\nto dictate prices throughout an entire industry, it is also wrong for\na single union--or, as is the actual case, a small number of union\nleaders--to dictate wages and terms of employment throughout an entire\nindustry.\n\n_The evil to be eliminated is the power of unions to enforce\nindustry-wide bargaining._ Employees have a right, as we have seen, to\nselect a common agent for bargaining with _their_ employer but they\ndo not have a right to select a national agent to bargain with all\nemployers in the industry. If a union has the power to enforce uniform\nconditions of employment throughout the nation its power is comparable\nto that of a Socialist government.\n\nEmployers are forbidden to act collusively for sound reasons. The same\nreasons apply to unions. Industry-wide price-fixing causes economic\ndislocations. So does industry-wide wage-fixing. A wage that is\nappropriate in one part of the country may not be in another area where\neconomic conditions are very different. Corporate monopolies impair the\noperation of the free market, and thus injure the consuming public. So\ndo union monopolies. When the United Automobile Workers demand a wage\nincrease from the auto industry, a single monolith is pitted against\na number of separate, competing companies. The contest is an unequal\none, for the union is able to play off one company against another.\nThe result is that individual companies are unable to resist excessive\nwage demands and must, in turn, raise their prices. The consumer\nultimately suffers for he pays prices that are fixed not by free\nmarket competition--the law of supply and demand--but by the arbitrary\ndecision of national union leaders. Far better if the employees of Ford\nwere required to deal with Ford, and those of Chrysler with Chrysler\nand so on. The collective bargaining process will work for the common\ngood in all industries if it is confined to the employers and employees\ndirectly concerned.\n\nLet us henceforth make war on all monopolies--whether corporate or\nunion. The enemy of freedom is unrestrained power, and the champions\nof freedom will fight against the concentration of power wherever they\nfind it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER SEVEN Taxes and Spending\n\n\nWe all have heard much throughout our lifetimes, and seen little\nhappen, on the subject of high taxes. Where is the politician who has\nnot promised his constituents a fight to the death for lower taxes--and\nwho has not proceeded to vote for the very spending projects that\nmake tax cuts impossible? There are some the shoe does not fit, but\nI am afraid not many. Talk of tax reduction has thus come to have a\nhollow ring. The people listen, but do not believe. And worse: as the\npublic grows more and more cynical, the politician feels less and less\ncompelled to take his promises seriously.\n\nI suspect that this vicious circle of cynicism and failure to perform\nis primarily the result of the Liberals\u2019 success in reading out of the\ndiscussion the moral principles with which the subject of taxation\nis so intimately connected. We have been led to look upon taxation\nas merely a problem of public financing: How much money does the\ngovernment need? We have been led to discount, and often to forget\naltogether, the bearing of taxation on the problem of individual\nfreedom. We have been persuaded that the government has an unlimited\nclaim on the wealth of the people, and that the only pertinent question\nis what portion of its claim the government should exercise. The\nAmerican taxpayer, I think, has lost confidence in _his_ claim to his\nmoney. He has been handicapped in resisting high taxes by the feeling\nthat he is, in the nature of things, obliged to accommodate whatever\nneed for his wealth government chooses to assert.\n\nThe \u201cnature of things,\u201d I submit, is quite different. Government does\n_not_ have an unlimited claim on the earnings of individuals. One\nof the foremost precepts of the natural law is man\u2019s right to the\npossession and the use of his property. And a man\u2019s earnings are his\nproperty as much as his land and the house in which he lives. Indeed,\nin the industrial age, earnings are probably the most prevalent form\nof property. It has been the fashion in recent years to disparage\n\u201cproperty rights\u201d--to associate them with greed and materialism. This\nattack on property rights is actually an attack on freedom. It is\nanother instance of the modern failure to take into account the _whole_\nman. How can a man be truly free if he is denied the means to exercise\nfreedom? How can he be free if the fruits of his labor are not his\nto dispose of, but are treated, instead, as part of a common pool of\npublic wealth? Property and freedom are inseparable: to the extent\ngovernment takes the one in the form of taxes, it intrudes on the\nother.\n\nHere is an indication of how taxation currently infringes on our\nfreedom. A family man earning $4,500 a year works, on the average,\ntwenty-two days a month. Taxes, visible and invisible, take\napproximately 32% of his earnings. This means that one-third, or seven\nwhole days, of his monthly labor goes for taxes. The average American\nis therefore working one-third of the time for government: a third of\nwhat he produces is not available for his own use but is confiscated\nand used by others who have not earned it. Let us note that by this\nmeasure the United States is already one-third \u201csocialized.\u201d The late\nSenator Taft made the point often. \u201cYou can socialize,\u201d he said \u201cjust\nas well by a steady increase in the burden of taxation beyond the 30%\nwe have already reached as you can by government seizure. The very\nimposition of heavy taxes is a limit on a man\u2019s freedom.\u201d\n\nBut having said that each man has an inalienable right to his property,\nit also must be said that every citizen has an obligation to contribute\nhis fair share to the legitimate functions of government. Government,\nin other words, has _some_ claim on our wealth, and the problem is to\ndefine that claim in a way that gives due consideration to the property\nrights of the individual.\n\nThe size of the government\u2019s rightful claim--that is, the total\namount it may take in taxes--will be determined by how we define the\n\u201clegitimate functions of government.\u201d With regard to the federal\ngovernment, the _Constitution_ is the proper standard of legitimacy:\nits \u201clegitimate\u201d powers, as we have seen are those the Constitution\nhas delegated to it. Therefore, if we adhere to the Constitution, the\nfederal government\u2019s total tax bill will be the cost of exercising such\nof its _delegated_ powers as our representatives deem necessary in the\nnational interest. But conversely, when the federal government enacts\nprograms that are _not_ authorized by its delegated powers, the taxes\nneeded to pay for such programs _exceed_ the government\u2019s rightful\nclaim on our wealth.\n\nThe distribution of the government\u2019s claim is the next part of the\ndefinition. What is a \u201cfair share?\u201d I believe that the requirements of\njustice here are perfectly clear: _government has a right to claim an\nequal percentage of each man\u2019s wealth, and no more_. Property taxes are\ntypically levied on this basis. Excise and sales taxes are based on the\nsame principle--though the tax is levied on a transaction rather than\non property. _The principle is equally valid with regard to incomes,\ninheritances and gifts._ The idea that a man who makes $100,000 a year\nshould be forced to contribute ninety per cent of his income to the\ncost of government, while the man who makes $10,000 is made to pay\ntwenty per cent is repugnant to my notions of justice. I do not believe\nin punishing success. To put it more broadly, I believe it is contrary\nto the natural right to property to which we have just alluded--and is\ntherefore immoral--to deny to the man whose labor has produced more\nabundant fruit than that of his neighbor the opportunity of enjoying\nthe abundance he has created. As for the claim that the government\n_needs_ the graduated tax for revenue purposes, the facts are to the\ncontrary. The total revenue collected from income taxes beyond the\ntwenty per cent level amounts to less than $5 billion--less than the\nfederal government now spends on the one item of agriculture.\n\nThe graduated tax is a _confiscatory_ tax. Its effect, and to a large\nextent its aim, is to bring down all men to a common level. Many\nof the leading proponents of the graduated tax frankly admit that\ntheir purpose is to redistribute the nation\u2019s wealth. Their aim is\nan egalitarian society--an objective that does violence both to the\ncharter of the Republic and the laws of Nature. We are all equal in the\neyes of God but we are equal _in no other respect_. Artificial devices\nfor enforcing equality among unequal men must be rejected if we would\nrestore that charter and honor those laws.\n\nOne problem with regard to taxes, then, is to enforce justice--to\nabolish the graduated features of our tax laws; and the sooner we get\nat the job, the better.\n\nThe other, and the one that has the greatest impact on our daily lives,\nis to reduce the volume of taxes. And this takes us to the question\nof government spending. While there is something to be said for the\nproposition that spending will never be reduced so long as there is\nmoney in the federal treasury, I believe that as a practical matter\nspending cuts must come before tax cuts. If we reduce taxes before\nfirm, principled decisions are made about expenditures, we will court\ndeficit spending and the inflationary effects that invariably follow.\n\nIt is in the area of spending that the Republican Party\u2019s performance,\nin its seven years of power, has been most disappointing.\n\nIn the Summer of 1952, shortly after the Republican Convention, the two\nmen who had battled for the Presidential nomination met at Morningside\nHeights, New York, to discuss the problem of taxes and spending.\nAfter the conference, Senator Taft announced: \u201cGeneral Eisenhower\nemphatically agrees with me in the proposal to reduce drastically\noverall expenses. Our goal is about $70 billion in fiscal 1954\n(President Truman had proposed $81 billion) and $60 billion in fiscal\n1955.... Of course, I hope we may do better than that and that the\nreduction can steadily continue.\u201d Thereafter, the idea of a $60 billion\nbudget in 1955, plus the promise of further reductions later on, became\nan integral part of the Republican campaign.\n\nNow it would be bad enough if we had simply failed to redeem our\npromise to reduce spending; the fact, however, is that federal spending\nhas greatly _increased_ during the Republican years. Instead of a\n$60 billion budget, we are confronted, in fiscal 1961, with a budget\nof approximately $80 billion. If we add to the formal budget figure\ndisbursements from the so-called trust funds for Social Security and\nthe Federal Highway Program--as we must if we are to obtain a realistic\npicture of federal expenditures--total federal spending will be in the\nneighborhood of _$95 billion_.\n\nWe are often told that increased federal spending is simply a\nreflection of the increased cost of national defense. This is untrue.\nIn the last ten years purely _domestic_ expenditures have increased\nfrom $15.2 billion, in fiscal 1951, to a proposed $37.0 billion in\nfiscal 1961[2]--_an increase_ of 143%! Here are the figures measured\nby a slightly different yardstick: during the last five years of the\nTruman Administration the average annual federal expenditure for\ndomestic purposes was $17.7 billion; during the last five years of the\nEisenhower Administration it was $33.6 billion, an increase of 89%.\n\nSome allowance must be made, of course, for the increase in population;\nobviously the same welfare program will cost more if there are more\npeople to be cared for. But the increase in population does not begin\nto account for the increase in spending. During the ten-year period\nin which federal spending will have increased by 143%, our population\nwill have increased by roughly 18%. Nor does inflation account for the\ndifference. In the past ten years the value of the dollar has decreased\nless than 20%. Finally, we are often told that the government\u2019s _share_\nof total spending in the country is what is important and consequently\nwe must take into account the increase in gross national product.\nAgain, however, the increase in GNP, which was roughly 40% over the\npast ten years, is not comparable to a 143% increase in federal\nspending. The conclusion here is inescapable--that far from arresting\nfederal spending and the trend toward Statism we Republicans have kept\nthe trend moving forward.\n\nI do not mean to suggest, of course, that things would have been\ndifferent under a Democratic Administration. Every year the Democratic\nnational leadership demands that the federal government spend _more_\nthan it is spending, and that Republicans propose to spend. _And this\nyear, several weeks before President Eisenhower submitted his 1961\nbudget, The Democratic National Advisory Council issued a manifesto\ncalling for profligate spending increases in nearly every department of\nthe federal government; the demands for increases in domestic spending\nalone could hardly cost less than $20 billion a year._\n\nI do mean to say, however, that _neither_ of our political parties\nhas seriously faced up to the problem of government spending. The\nrecommendations of the Hoover Commission which could save the taxpayer\nin the neighborhood of $7 billion a year have been largely ignored. Yet\neven these recommendations, dealing as they do for the most part with\nextravagance and waste, do not go to the heart of the problem. The root\nevil is that the government is engaged in activities in which it has no\nlegitimate business. As long as the federal government acknowledges\nresponsibility in a given social or economic field, its spending in\nthat field cannot be substantially reduced. As long as the federal\ngovernment acknowledges responsibility for education, for example,\nthe amount of federal aid is bound to increase, at the very least,\nin direct proportion to the cost of supporting the nation\u2019s schools.\n_The only way to curtail spending substantially, is to eliminate the\nprograms on which excess spending is consumed._\n\nThe government must begin to _withdraw_ from a whole series of programs\nthat are outside its constitutional mandate--from social welfare\nprograms, education, public power, agriculture, public housing, urban\nrenewal and all the other activities that can be better performed\nby lower levels of government or by private institutions or by\nindividuals. I do not suggest that the federal government drop all\nof these programs overnight. But I do suggest that we establish, by\nlaw, a rigid timetable for a staged withdrawal. We might provide, for\nexample, for a 10% spending reduction each year in all of the fields\nin which federal participation is undesirable. It is only through this\nkind of determined assault on the principle of unlimited government\nthat American people will obtain relief from high taxes, and will start\nmaking progress toward regaining their freedom.\n\nAnd let us, by all means, remember the _nation\u2019s_ interest in reducing\ntaxes and spending. The need for \u201ceconomic growth\u201d that we hear so much\nabout these days will be achieved, not by the government harnessing\nthe nation\u2019s economic forces, but by emancipating them. By reducing\ntaxes and spending we will not only return to the individual the means\nwith which he can assert his freedom and dignity, but also guarantee\nto the nation the economic strength that will always be its ultimate\ndefense against foreign foes.\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[2] These figures do not include interest payments on the national\ndebt.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER EIGHT The Welfare State\n\n\n  Washington--The President estimated that the expenditures of the\n  Department of Health, Education and Welfare in the fiscal year 1961\n  (including Social Security payments) would exceed $15,000,000,000.\n  Thus the current results of New Deal legislation are Federal\n  disbursements for human welfare in this country second only to\n  national defense.\n\n  The _New York Times_, January 18, 1960, p. 1.\n\nFor many years it appeared that the principal domestic threat\nto our freedom was contained in the doctrines of Karl Marx. The\ncollectivists--non-Communists as well as Communists--had adopted the\nMarxist objective of \u201csocializing the means of production.\u201d And so it\nseemed that if collectivization were imposed, it would take the form of\na State owned and operated economy. I doubt whether this is the main\nthreat any longer.\n\nThe collectivists have found, both in this country and in other\nindustrialized nations of the West, that free enterprise has removed\nthe economic and social conditions that might have made a class\nstruggle possible. Mammoth productivity, wide distribution of wealth,\nhigh standards of living, the trade union movement--these and other\nfactors have eliminated whatever incentive there might have been for\nthe \u201cproletariat\u201d to rise up, peaceably or otherwise, and assume direct\nownership of productive property. Significantly, the bankruptcy of\ndoctrinaire Marxism has been expressly acknowledged by the Socialist\nParty of West Germany, and by the dominant faction of the Socialist\nParty of Great Britain. In this country the abandonment of the Marxist\napproach (outside the Communist Party, of course) is attested to by the\nnegligible strength of the Socialist Party, and more tellingly perhaps,\nby the content of left wing literature and by the programs of left wing\npolitical organizations such as the Americans For Democratic Action.\n\nThe currently favored instrument of collectivization is the Welfare\nState. The collectivists have not abandoned their ultimate goal--to\nsubordinate the individual to the State--but their strategy has\nchanged. They have learned that Socialism can be achieved through\nWelfarism quite as well as through Nationalization. They understand\nthat private property can be confiscated as effectively by taxation as\nby expropriating it. They understand that the individual can be put at\nthe mercy of the State--not only by making the State his employer--but\nby divesting him of the means to provide for his personal needs and\nby giving the State the responsibility of caring for those needs\nfrom cradle to grave. Moreover, they have discovered--and here is\nthe critical point--that _Welfarism is much more compatible with the\npolitical processes of a democratic society_. Nationalization ran into\npopular opposition, but the collectivists feel sure the Welfare State\ncan be erected by the simple expedient of buying votes with promises\nof \u201cfree\u201d federal benefits--\u201cfree\u201d housing, \u201cfree\u201d school aid, \u201cfree\u201d\nhospitalization, \u201cfree\u201d retirement pay and so on.... The correctness\nof this estimate can be seen from the portion of the federal budget\nthat is now allocated to welfare, an amount second only to the cost of\nnational defense.[3]\n\nI do not welcome this shift of strategy. Socialism-through-Welfarism\nposes a far greater danger to freedom than\nSocialism-through-Nationalization precisely because it is more\ndifficult to combat. The evils of Nationalization are self-evident and\nimmediate. Those of Welfarism are veiled and tend to be postponed.\nPeople can understand the consequences of turning over ownership of the\nsteel industry, say, to the State; and they can be counted on to oppose\nsuch a proposal. But let the government increase its contribution to\nthe \u201cPublic Assistance\u201d program and we will, at most, grumble about\nexcessive government spending. The effect of Welfarism on freedom will\nbe felt later on--after its beneficiaries have become its victims,\nafter dependence on government has turned into bondage and it is too\nlate to unlock the jail.\n\nBut a far more important factor is Welfarism\u2019s strong emotional appeal\nto many voters, and the consequent temptations it presents the average\npolitician. It is hard, as we have seen, to make out a case for State\nownership. It is very different with the rhetoric of humanitarianism.\nHow easy it is to reach the voters with earnest importunities for\nhelping the needy. And how difficult for Conservatives to resist these\ndemands without appearing to be callous and contemptuous of the plight\nof less fortunate citizens. Here, perhaps, is the best illustration of\nthe failure of the Conservative demonstration.\n\nI know, for I have heard the questions often. Have you no sense of\nsocial obligation? the Liberals ask. Have you no concern for people who\nare out of work? for sick people who lack medical care? for children in\novercrowded schools? Are you unmoved by the problems of the aged and\ndisabled? Are you _against_ human welfare?\n\nThe answer to all of these questions is, of course, no. But a simple\n\u201cno\u201d is not enough. I feel certain that Conservatism is through unless\nConservatives can demonstrate and communicate the difference between\nbeing concerned with these problems and believing that the federal\ngovernment is the proper agent for their solution.\n\nThe long range political consequences of Welfarism are plain enough:\nas we have seen, the State that is able to deal with its citizens as\nwards and dependents has gathered unto itself unlimited political and\neconomic power and is thus able to rule as absolutely as any oriental\ndespot.\n\nLet us, however, weigh the consequences of Welfarism on the individual\ncitizen.\n\nConsider, first, the effect of Welfarism on the donors of government\nwelfare--not only those who pay for it but also the voters and\ntheir elected representatives who decide that the benefits shall be\nconferred. Does some credit redound on them for trying to care for the\nneeds of their fellow citizens? Are they to be commended and rewarded,\nat some moment in eternity, for their \u201ccharity?\u201d I think not. Suppose I\nshould vote for a measure providing for free medical care: I am unaware\nof any moral virtue that is attached to my decision to confiscate the\nearnings of X and give them to Y.\n\nSuppose, however, that X approves of the program--that he has voted\nfor welfarist politicians with the idea of helping his fellow man.\nSurely the wholesomeness of his act is diluted by the fact that he is\nvoting not only to have his own money taken but also that of his fellow\ncitizens who may have different ideas about their social obligations.\nWhy does not such a man, instead, contribute what he regards as his\njust share of human welfare to a private charity?\n\nConsider the consequences to the recipient of welfarism. For one\nthing, he mortgages himself to the federal government. In return for\nbenefits--which, in the majority of cases, he pays for--he concedes to\nthe government the ultimate in political power--the power to grant or\nwithhold from him the necessities of life as the government sees fit.\nEven more important, however, is the effect on him--the elimination\nof any feeling of responsibility for his own welfare and that of his\nfamily and neighbors. A man may not immediately, or ever, comprehend\nthe harm thus done to his character. Indeed, this is one of the great\nevils of Welfarism--that it transforms the individual from a dignified,\nindustrious, self-reliant _spiritual_ being into a dependent animal\ncreature without his knowing it. There is no avoiding this damage to\ncharacter under the Welfare State. Welfare programs cannot help but\npromote the idea that the government _owes_ the benefits it confers\non the individual, and that the individual is entitled, by right, to\nreceive them. Such programs are sold to the country precisely on the\nargument that government has an _obligation_ to care for the needs of\nits citizens. Is it possible that the message will reach those who vote\nfor the benefits, but not those who receive them? How different it is\nwith private charity where both the giver and the receiver understand\nthat charity is the product of the humanitarian impulses of the giver,\nnot the due of the receiver.\n\nLet us, then, not blunt the noble impulses of mankind by reducing\ncharity to a mechanical operation of the federal government. Let\nus, by all means, encourage those who are fortunate and able to care\nfor the needs of those who are unfortunate and disabled. But let us\ndo this in a way that is conducive to the spiritual as well as the\nmaterial well-being of our citizens--and in a way that will preserve\ntheir freedom. Let welfare be a private concern. Let it be promoted by\nindividuals and families, by churches, private hospitals, religious\nservice organizations, community charities and other institutions that\nhave been established for this purpose. If the objection is raised that\nprivate institutions lack sufficient funds, let us remember that every\npenny the federal government does _not_ appropriate for welfare is\npotentially available for private use--and without the overhead charge\nfor processing the money through the federal bureaucracy. Indeed, high\ntaxes, for which government Welfarism is so largely responsible, is the\nbiggest obstacle to fund raising by private charities.\n\nFinally, if we deem public intervention necessary, let the job be done\nby local and state authorities that are incapable of accumulating the\nvast political power that is so inimical to our liberties.\n\nThe Welfare State is _not_ inevitable, as its proponents are so\nfond of telling us. There is nothing inherent in an industrialized\neconomy, or in democratic processes of government that _must_ produce\nde Tocqueville\u2019s \u201cguardian society.\u201d Our future, like our past, will\nbe what we make it. And we can shatter the collectivists\u2019 designs\non individual freedom if we will impress upon the men who conduct\nour affairs this one truth: that the material and spiritual sides of\nman are intertwined; that it is impossible for the State to assume\nresponsibility for one without intruding on the essential nature of\nthe other; that if we take from a man the personal responsibility for\ncaring for his material needs, we take from him also the will and the\nopportunity to be free.\n\n\nFOOTNOTE:\n\n[3] The total figure is substantially higher than the $15,000,000,000\nnoted above if we take into account welfare expenditures outside the\nDepartment of Health, Education and Welfare--for federal housing\nprojects, for example.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER NINE Some Notes On Education\n\n\nI agree with lobbyists for federal school aid that education is one of\nthe great problems of our day. I am afraid, however, that their views\nand mine regarding the nature of the problem are many miles apart. They\ntend to see the problem in _quantitative_ terms--not enough schools,\nnot enough teachers, not enough equipment. I think it has to do with\n_quality_: How good are the schools we have? Their solution is to\nspend more money. Mine is to raise standards. Their recourse is to\nthe federal government. Mine is to the local public school board, the\nprivate school, the individual citizen--as far away from the federal\ngovernment as one can possibly go. And I suspect that if we knew which\nof these two views on education will eventually prevail, we would know\nalso whether Western civilization is due to survive, or will pass away.\n\nTo put this somewhat differently, I believe that our ability to cope\nwith the great crises that lie ahead will be enhanced in direct ratio\nas we recapture the lost art of learning, and will diminish in direct\nratio as we give responsibility for training our children\u2019s minds to\nthe federal bureaucracy.\n\nBut let us put these differences aside for the moment and note four\nreasons why federal aid to education is objectionable even if we grant\nthat the problem is primarily quantitative.\n\nThe first is that federal intervention in education is\nunconstitutional. It is the fashion these days to say that\nresponsibility for education \u201ctraditionally\u201d rests with the local\ncommunity--as a prelude to proposing an exception to the tradition in\nthe form of federal aid. This \u201ctradition,\u201d let us remember, is also\nthe _law_. It is sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States,\nfor education is one of the powers reserved to the States by the Tenth\nAmendment. Therefore, any federal aid program, however desirable it\nmight appear, must be regarded as illegal until such time as the\nConstitution is amended.\n\nThe second objection is that the alleged need for federal funds has\nnever been convincingly demonstrated. It all depends, of course, on\nhow the question is put. If you ask, Does State X need additional\neducational facilities? the answer may be yes. But if you ask, Does\nState X require additional facilities that are beyond the reach of\nits own financial means? the answer is invariably no. The White House\nConference on Education in 1955 was, most of us will remember, an\nelaborate effort to demonstrate popular support for federal aid. As\nexpected, the \u201cconsensus\u201d of the conference was that more federal aid\nwas needed. However, the conferees reached another conclusion that was\nhardly noticed by the press. \u201cNo state represented,\u201d the Conference\nreport stated, \u201chas a demonstrated financial incapacity to build the\nschools they will need during the next five years.\u201d What is lacking,\nthe report went on, _is not money, but a \u201cpolitical determination\npowerful enough to overcome all the obstacles\u201d_.\n\nThrough the succeeding five years, congressional committees have\nlistened to hundreds of hours of testimony in favor of federal aid, but\nthey have never heard that 1955 finding successfully contradicted. What\nthe White House conferees were saying in 1955, and what proponents of\nfederal aid to education have been saying ever since, is that because\na few States have not seen fit to take care of their school needs,\nit is incumbent upon the federal government to take up the slack. My\nview is that if State X possesses the wealth to educate its children\nadequately, but has failed to utilize its wealth for that purpose, it\nis up to the people of State X to take remedial action through their\nlocal and state governments. The federal government has neither the\nright nor the duty to intervene.\n\nLet us, moreover, keep the problem in proper perspective. The national\nschool system is _not_ in distress. Shortly before the Senate debate\nthis year on increased federal aid, I asked Mr. Arthur Flemming the\nSecretary of Health, Education and Welfare, how many of the Nation\u2019s\nschool districts were in actual trouble--how many, that is, had reached\ntheir bonded limit. His answer was approximately 230. Now there are\nroughly 42,000 school districts in America. Thus, proponents of federal\naid are talking about a problem that affects only one-half of one\nper cent of our school districts! I cannot believe that the state\ngovernments responsible for those areas are incapable of making up\nwhatever deficiencies exist. It so happens that the same deficiency\nfigure--one-half of one per cent--applies to my own state of Arizona.\nAnd Arizona proudly turned down federal funds under the 1958 National\nDefense Education Act on the grounds that Arizonans, themselves, were\nquite capable of closing the gap.\n\nThis may be the place, while we are speaking of need, to lay to rest\nthe notion that the American people have been niggardly in support of\ntheir schools. Since the end of World War II, Americans have built\n550,000 classrooms at a cost of approximately $19 billion--almost\nall of which was raised at the local level. This new construction\nprovided space for over 15 million pupils during a period when the\nschool population increased by only 10 million pupils. It is evident,\ntherefore, that increased school expenditures have more than kept pace\nwith increased school needs.\n\nHere are some of the figures. In the school year 1949-50 there were\n25 million students enrolled in various education institutions in\nthe United States. In the year 1959-60 there were 34.7 million--an\nincrease of 38%. During the same period revenues for school use,\nraised largely at the local level, increased from 5.4 billion to 12.1\nbillion--an increase of 124%. When school expenditures increase three\nand a half times as fast as the school population, I do not think that\nthe adequacy of America\u2019s \u201ctraditional\u201d approach to education is open\nto serious question.\n\nThe third objection to federal aid is that it promotes the idea that\nfederal school money is \u201cfree\u201d money, and thus gives the people a\ndistorted picture of the cost of education. I was distressed to find\nthat five out of six high school and junior college students recently\ninterviewed in Phoenix said they favored federal aid because it would\nmean more money for local schools and ease the financial burden on\nArizona taxpayers.\n\nThe truth, of course, is that the federal government has no funds\nexcept those it extracts from the taxpayers who reside in the various\nStates. The money that the federal government pays to State X for\neducation has been taken from the citizens of State X in federal taxes\nand comes back to them, minus the Washington brokerage fee. The less\nwealthy States, to be sure, receive slightly more than they give, just\nas the more wealthy States receive somewhat less. But the differences\nare negligible. For the most part, federal aid simply substitutes the\ntax-collecting facilities of the federal government for those of local\ngovernments. This fact cannot be stressed often enough; for stripped\nof the idea that federal money is free money, federal aid to education\nis exposed as an act of naked compulsion--a decision by the federal\ngovernment to force the people of the States to spend more money than\nthey choose to spend for this purpose voluntarily.\n\nThe fourth objection is that federal aid _to_ education inevitably\nmeans federal control _of_ education. For many years, advocates of\nfederal aid denied that aid implies control, but in the light of\nthe National Defense Education Act of 1958 they cannot very well\nmaintain their position. Federal aid under the act is conditioned\nupon compliance by the States and local educational institutions with\nvarious standards and specifications laid down by the Department of\nHealth, Education and Welfare. _There are no less than twelve direct\ncontrols of this kind in the act._ Moreover, the acknowledged purpose\nof the act is to persuade local educational institutions to put greater\nemphasis on the physical sciences and other subjects directly related\nto national defense. I do not question the desirability of encouraging\nincreased proficiency in the physical sciences, but when the federal\ngovernment does the encouraging through the withholding and granting of\nfunds, I do not see how it can be denied that the federal government\nis helping to determine the _content_ of education; and influencing\ncontent is the last, not the first, stage of control.\n\nNobody should be surprised that aid has led to controls. It could, and\n_should not_ be otherwise. Congress cannot be expected to appropriate\nthe people\u2019s money and make no provision for how it will be spent.\nCongress would be shirking its responsibilities to the taxpayer if\nit distributed his money willy-nilly, without regard to its use.\nShould Congress permit the use of federal funds to subsidize Communist\nschools and thus promote the cause of our enemies? Of course not. But\na prohibition of such use is clearly an exercise of federal control.\nCongress will always feel impelled to establish conditions under which\npeople\u2019s money is to be spent, and while some controls may be wise\nwe are not guaranteed against unwise controls any more than we are\nguaranteed against unwise Congressmen. The mistake is not the controls\nbut appropriating the money that requires controls.\n\nSo much for the evils and dangers of federal aid. Note that I have\nnot denied that many of our children are being inadequately educated,\nor that the problem is nation-wide. I have only denied that it is the\nkind of problem that requires a solution at the national level. To\nthe extent the problem is quantitative--to the extent we have too few\nclassrooms and pay some of our teachers too little money--the shortages\ncan be taken care of by the localities concerned. But more: to the\nextent the problem is qualitative--which in my opinion it mainly is--it\nis manifestly one that lends itself to correction at the local level.\nThere is no place where deficiencies in the _content_ of an educational\nsystem can be better understood than locally where a community has the\nopportunity to view and judge the product of its own school system.\n\nIn the main, the trouble with American education is that we have put\ninto practice the educational philosophy expounded by John Dewey and\nhis disciples. In varying degrees we have adopted what has been called\n\u201cprogressive education.\u201d\n\nSubscribing to the egalitarian notion that every child must have the\nsame education, we have neglected to provide an educational system\nwhich will tax the talents and stir the ambitions of our best students\nand which will thus insure us the kind of leaders we will need in the\nfuture.\n\nIn our desire to make sure that our children learn to \u201cadjust\u201d to their\nenvironment, we have given them insufficient opportunity to acquire the\nknowledge that will enable them to _master_ their environment.\n\nIn our attempt to make education \u201cfun,\u201d we have neglected the academic\ndisciplines that develop sound minds and are conducive to sound\ncharacters.\n\nResponding to the Deweyite attack on methods of teaching, we have\nencouraged the teaching profession to be more concerned with _how_ a\nsubject is taught than with _what_ is taught. Most important of all:\nin our anxiety to \u201cimprove\u201d the world and insure \u201cprogress\u201d we have\npermitted our schools to become laboratories for social and economic\nchange according to the predilections of the professional educators. We\nhave forgotten that the proper function of the school is to transmit\nthe cultural heritage of one generation to the next generation, and to\nso train the minds of the new generation as to make them capable of\nabsorbing ancient learning and applying it to the problem of its own\nday.\n\nThe fundamental explanation of this distortion of values is that we\nhave forgotten that purpose of education. Or better: we have forgotten\nfor _whom_ education is intended. The function of our schools is not\nto educate, or elevate, _society_; but rather to educate _individuals_\nand to equip them with the knowledge that will enable them to take\ncare of society\u2019s needs. We have forgotten that a society progresses\nonly to the extent that it produces leaders that are capable of\nguiding and inspiring progress. And we cannot develop such leaders\nunless our standards of education are geared to excellence instead\nof mediocrity. We must give full rein to individual talents, and we\nmust encourage our schools to enforce the academic disciplines--to put\npreponderant emphasis on English, mathematics, history, literature,\nforeign languages and the natural sciences. We should look upon our\nschools--not as a place to train the \u201cwhole character\u201d of the child--a\nresponsibility that properly belongs to his family and church--but to\ntrain his _mind_.\n\nOur country\u2019s past progress has been the result, not of the mass mind\napplying average intelligence to the problems of the day, but of\nthe brilliance and dedication of wise individuals who applied their\nwisdom to advance the freedom and the material well-being of all of our\npeople. And so if we would improve education in America--and advance\nthe fortunes of freedom--we will not rush to the federal treasury with\nrequests for money. We will focus attention on our local community, and\nmake sure that our schools, private and public, are performing the job\nthe Nation has the right to expect of them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER TEN The Soviet Menace\n\n\nAnd still the awful truth remains: We can establish the domestic\nconditions for maximizing freedom, along the lines I have indicated,\nand yet become slaves. We can do this by losing the Cold War to the\nSoviet Union.\n\nAmerican freedom has always depended, to an extent, on what is\nhappening beyond our shores. Even in Ben Franklin\u2019s day, Americans had\nto reckon with foreign threats. Our forebearers knew that \u201ckeeping a\nRepublic\u201d meant, above all, keeping it safe from foreign transgressors;\nthey knew that a people cannot live and work freely, and develop\nnational institutions conducive to freedom, except in peace and with\nindependence. In those early days the threat to peace and independence\nwas very real. We were a fledgling-nation and the slightest misstep--or\nfaint hearts--would have laid us open to the ravages of predatory\nEuropean powers. It was only because wise and courageous men understood\nthat defense of freedom required risks and sacrifice, as well as\ntheir belief in it, that we survived the crisis of national infancy.\nAs we grew stronger, and as the oceans continued to interpose a\nphysical barrier between ourselves and European militarism, the\nforeign danger gradually receded. Though we always had to keep a\nweather eye on would-be conquerors, our independence was acknowledged\nand peace, unless we chose otherwise, was established. Indeed, after\nthe Second World War, we were not only master of our own destiny; we\nwere master of the world. With a monopoly of atomic weapons, and with\na conventional military establishment superior to any in the world,\nAmerica was--in relative and absolute terms--the most powerful nation\nthe world had ever known. American freedom was as secure as at any time\nin our history.\n\nNow, a decade and half later, we have come full circle and our national\nexistence is once again threatened as it was in the early days of\nthe Republic. Though we are still strong physically, we are in clear\nand imminent danger of being overwhelmed by alien forces. We are\nconfronted by a revolutionary world movement that possesses not only\nthe will to dominate absolutely every square mile of the globe, but\nincreasingly the capacity to do so: a military power that rivals our\nown, political warfare and propaganda skills that are superior to ours,\nan international fifth column that operates conspiratorially in the\nheart of our defenses, an ideology that imbues its adherents with a\nsense of historical mission; and all of these resources controlled by\na ruthless despotism that brooks no deviation from the revolutionary\ncourse. This threat, moreover, is growing day by day. And it has\nnow reached the point where American leaders, both political and\nintellectual, are searching desperately for means of \u201cappeasing\u201d or\n\u201caccommodating\u201d the Soviet Union as the price of national survival. The\nAmerican people are being told that, however valuable their freedom\nmay be, it is even more important to live. A craven fear of death is\nentering the American consciousness; so much so that many recently felt\nthat honoring the chief despot himself was the price we had to pay to\navoid nuclear destruction.\n\nThe temptation is strong to blame the deterioration of America\u2019s\nfortunes on the Soviet Union\u2019s acquisition of nuclear weapons. But this\nis self-delusion. The rot had set in, the crumbling of our position\nwas already observable, long before the Communists detonated their\nfirst Atom Bomb. Even in the early 1950s, when America still held\nunquestioned nuclear superiority, it was clear that we were losing the\nCold War. Time and again in my campaign speeches of 1952 I warned my\nfellow Arizonans that \u201cAmerican Foreign Policy has brought us from a\nposition of undisputed power, in seven short years, to the brink of\npossible disaster.\u201d And in the succeeding seven years, that trend,\nbecause its cause remains, has continued.\n\nThe real cause of the deterioration can be simply stated. Our enemies\nhave understood the nature of the conflict, and we have not. They are\ndetermined to win the conflict, and we are not.\n\nI hesitate to restate the obvious--to say again what has been said so\nmany times before by so many others: that the Communists\u2019 aim is to\nconquer the world. I repeat it because it is the beginning and the end\nof our knowledge about the conflict between East and West. I repeat it\nbecause I fear that however often we have given lip-service to this\ncentral political fact of our time, very few of us have _believed_ it.\nIf we had, our entire approach to foreign policy over the past fourteen\nyears would have been radically different, and the course of world\nevents radically changed.\n\nIf an enemy power is bent on conquering you, and proposes to turn all\nof his resources to that end, he is at war with you; and you--unless\nyou contemplate surrender--are at war with him. Moreover--unless you\ncontemplate treason--your objective, like his, will be victory. Not\n\u201cpeace,\u201d but victory. Now, while traitors (and perhaps cowards) have at\ntimes occupied key positions in our government, it is clear that our\nnational leadership over the past fourteen years has favored neither\nsurrender nor treason. It is equally clear, however, that our leaders\nhave not made _victory_ the goal of American policy. And the reason\nthat they have not done so, I am saying, is that they have never\nbelieved deeply that the Communists are in earnest.\n\nOur avowed national objective is \u201cpeace.\u201d We have, with great\nsincerity, \u201cwaged\u201d peace, while the Communists wage war. We have sought\n\u201csettlements,\u201d while the Communists seek victories. We have tried\nto pacify the world. The Communists mean to own it. Here is why the\ncontest has been an unequal one, and why, essentially, we are losing it.\n\nPeace, to be sure, is a proper goal for American policy--as long as it\nis understood that peace is not all we seek. For we do not want the\npeace of surrender. We want a peace in which freedom and justice will\nprevail, and that--given the nature of Communism--is a peace in which\nSoviet power will no longer be in a position to threaten us and the\nrest of the world. A tolerable peace, in other words, must _follow_\nvictory over Communism. We have been fourteen years trying to bury\nthat unpleasant fact. It cannot be buried and any foreign policy that\nignores it will lead to our extinction as a nation.\n\nWe do not, of course, want to achieve victory by force of arms. If\npossible, overt hostilities should always be avoided; especially is\nthis so when a shooting war may cause the death of many millions of\npeople, including our own. But we cannot, for that reason, make the\navoidance of a shooting war our chief objective. If we do that--if we\ntell ourselves that it is more important to avoid shooting than to keep\nour freedom--we are committed to a course that has only one terminal\npoint: surrender. We cannot, by proclamation, make war \u201cunthinkable.\u201d\nFor it is not unthinkable to the Communists: naturally, they would\nprefer to avoid war, but they are prepared to risk it, in the last\nanalysis, to achieve their objectives. We must, in our hearts, be\nequally dedicated to our objectives. If war is unthinkable to us but\nnot to them, the famous \u201cbalance of terror\u201d is not a balance at all,\nbut an instrument of blackmail. U. S.-Soviet power may be in balance;\nbut if we, and not they, rule out the possibility of using that power,\nthe Kremlin can create crisis after crisis, and force the U. S.,\nbecause of our greater fear of war, to back down every time. And it\ncannot be long before a universal Communist Empire sits astride the\nglobe.\n\nThe rallying cry of an appeasement organization, portrayed in a recent\nnovel on American politics, was \u201cI would rather crawl on my knees\nto Moscow than die under an Atom bomb.\u201d This sentiment, of course,\nrepudiates everything that is courageous and honorable and dignified\nin the human being. We must--as the first step toward saving American\nfreedom--affirm the contrary view and make it the cornerstone of our\nforeign policy: that we would rather die than lose our freedom. There\nare ways which I will suggest later on--not easy ways, to be sure--in\nwhich we may save both our freedom _and_ our lives; but all such\nsuggestions are meaningless and vain unless we first understand what\nthe objective is. We want to stay alive, of course; but more than that\nwe want to be free. We want to have peace; but before that we want to\nestablish the conditions that will make peace tolerable. \u201cLike it or\nnot,\u201d Eugene Lyons has written, \u201cthe great and inescapable task of our\nepoch is not to end the Cold War but to win it.\u201d\n\nI suggest that we look at America\u2019s present foreign policy, and ask\nwhether it is conducive to victory. There are several aspects of this\npolicy. Let us measure each of them by the test: Does it help defeat\nthe enemy?\n\n\nDEFENSIVE ALLIANCES\n\nThrough NATO, SEATO and the Central Treaty Organization in mid-Asia,\nwe have served notice on the Kremlin that overt Communist aggression\nin certain areas of the world will be opposed by American arms. It is\nlikely that the existence of these alliances has helped discourage\nmilitary adventurism by the Communists.\n\nStill, we should not overestimate the value of the alliances. Though\nthey play a significant role in safeguarding American freedom, there\nare a number of reasons why it is a limited role.\n\nFirst, the alliance system is not co-extensive with the line that\nmust be held if enemy expansion is to be prevented. There are huge\nareas of the non-Communist world that the alliances do not touch.\nNor--even assuming America is strong enough to guard a world-wide\ndefense perimeter--is there any prospect of bringing these areas\ninto the system. The so-called neutral countries of the Middle East,\nAfrica and Southern Asia have refused to align themselves with the\nanti-Communist cause, and it is in those areas, as we might expect,\nthat the Communists are making significant strides. This is a critical\nweakness. If all of those areas should fall under Communist rule, the\nalliances would be outflanked everywhere: the system would be reduced\nto a series of outposts, and probably indefensible ones at that, in a\nwholly hostile world.\n\nSecondly, the alliance system does not protect even its members against\nthe most prevalent kind of Communist aggression: political penetration\nand internal subversion. Iraq is a case in point. We had pledged\nourselves to support the Iraqi against overt Soviet aggression--not\nonly under the Baghdad Pact of which Iraq was the cornerstone, but also\nunder the Eisenhower Doctrine. Iraq fell victim to a pro-Communist\ncoup without an American or Russian shot being fired. Cuba is another\nexample. If the Red Army had landed in Havana, we would have come to\nCuba\u2019s aid. Castro\u2019s forces, however, were native Cubans; as a result,\na pro-Communist regime has become entrenched on our very doorstep\nthrough the technique of internal subversion. And so it will always be\nwith an enemy that lays even more emphasis on political warfare than on\nmilitary warfare. So it will be until we learn to meet the enemy on his\nown grounds.\n\nBut thirdly, the alliance system cannot adequately protect its members\neven against _overt_ aggression. In the past, the Communists have been\nkept in check by America\u2019s strategic air arm. Indeed, in the light of\nthe weakness of the allied nations\u2019 conventional military forces, our\nnuclear superiority has been the alliances\u2019 only real weapon. But as\nthe Soviet Union draws abreast of us in nuclear strength, that weakness\ncould prove our undoing. In a nuclear stalemate, where neither side is\nprepared to go \u201call out\u201d over local issues, the side with the superior\nconventional forces has an obvious advantage. Moreover, it is clear\nthat we cannot hope to match the Communist world man for man, nor are\nwe capable of furnishing the guns and tanks necessary to defend thirty\nnations scattered over the face of the globe. The long-overdue answer,\nas we will see later on, lies in the development of a nuclear capacity\nfor limited wars.\n\nFinally--and I consider this the most serious defect of all--the\nalliance system is completely defensive in nature and outlook. This\nfact, in the light of the Communists\u2019 dynamic, offensive strategy,\nultimately dooms it to failure. No nation at war, employing an\nexclusively defensive strategy, can hope to survive for long. Like the\nboxer who refuses to throw a punch, the defense-bound nation will be\ncut down sooner or later. As long as every encounter with the enemy is\nfought on his initiative, on grounds of his choosing and with weapons\nof his choosing, we shall keep on losing the Cold War.\n\n\nFOREIGN AID\n\nAnother aspect of our policy is the Foreign Aid program. To it, in the\nlast fourteen years, we have committed over eighty billions of American\ntreasure--in grants, loans, material, and technical assistance. I\nwill not develop here what every thinking American knows about this\nGargantuan expenditure--that it has had dire consequences, not only\nfor the American taxpayer, but for the American economy; that it has\nbeen characterized by waste and extravagance both overseas and in the\nagencies that administer it; and that it has created a vast reservoir\nof anti-Americanism among proud peoples who, however irrationally,\nresent dependence on a foreign dole. I would rather put the question,\nHas the Foreign Aid program, for all of its drawbacks, made a\ncompensating contribution toward winning the Cold War?\n\nAnd this test, let me say parenthetically, is the only one under which\nthe Foreign Aid program can be justified. It cannot, that is to say, be\ndefended as a charity. The American government does not have the right,\nmuch less the obligation, to try to promote the economic and social\nwelfare of foreign peoples. Of course, all of us are interested in\ncombating poverty and disease wherever it exists. _But the Constitution\ndoes not empower our government to undertake that job in foreign\ncountries_, no matter how worthwhile it might be. Therefore, except as\nit can be shown to promote America\u2019s national interests, the Foreign\nAid program is unconstitutional.\n\nIt can be argued, but not proved, that American aid helped prevent\nWestern Europe from going Communist after the Second World War. It is\ntrue, for example, that the Communist parties in France and Italy were\nsomewhat weaker after economic recovery than before it. But it does\nnot follow that recovery _caused_ the reduction in Communist strength,\nor that American aid caused the recovery. It is also true, let us\nremember, that West Germany recovered economically at a far faster rate\nthan France or Italy, and received comparatively little American aid.\n\nIt also can be argued that American military aid has made the\ndifference between friendly countries having the power to fight off\nor discourage Communist aggression, and not having that power. Here,\nhowever, we must distinguish between friendly countries that were\n_not_ able to build their own military forces, and those that were.\nGreece, Turkey, Free China, South Korea and South Vietnam needed our\nhelp. Other countries, England and France, for example, were able to\nmaintain military forces with their own resources. For many years now,\nour allies in Western Europe have devoted smaller portions of their\nnational budgets to military forces than we have. The result is that\nthe American people, in the name of _military_ aid, have been giving an\n_economic_ handout to these nations; we have permitted them to transfer\nto their domestic economy funds which, in justice, should have been\nused in the common defense effort.\n\nNow let us note a significant fact. In each of the situations we have\nmentioned so far--situations where some evidence exists that Foreign\nAid has promoted American interests--there is a common denominator:\n_in every case, the recipient government was already committed to our\nside_. We _may_ have made these nations, on balance, stronger and more\nconstant allies, though even that is debatable. But we did not cause\nthem to alter their basic political commitments. This brings us to\nthe rest of the Foreign Aid program--and to the great fallacy that\nunderlies it.\n\nIncreasingly, our foreign aid goes not to our friends, but to professed\nneutrals--and even to professed enemies. We furnish this aid under the\ntheory that we can buy the allegiance of foreign peoples--or at least\ndiscourage them from \u201cgoing Communist\u201d--by making them economically\nprosperous. This has been called the \u201cstomach theory of Communism,\u201d and\nit implies that a man\u2019s politics are determined by the amount of food\nin his belly.\n\nEverything we have learned from experience, and from our observation\nof the nature of man, refutes this theory. A man\u2019s politics are,\nprimarily, the product of his mind. Material wealth can help him\nfurther his political goals, but it will not change them. The fact that\nsome poor, illiterate people have \u201cgone Communist\u201d does not prove that\npoverty caused them to do so any more than the fact that Alfred K. and\nMartha D. Stern are Communists proves that great wealth and a good\neducation make people go Communist. Let us remember that Communism is\na political movement, and that its weapons are primarily political.\nThe movement\u2019s effectiveness depends on small cadres of political\nactivists, and these cadres are, typically, composed of literate\nand well-fed people. We are not going to change the minds of such\npolitical activists, or impede their agitation of the masses by a \u201cwar\non poverty,\u201d however worthy such an effort might be on humanitarian\ngrounds.\n\nIt thus makes little sense to try to promote anti-Communism by giving\nmoney to governments that are not anti-Communist, that are, indeed, far\nmore inclined to the Soviet-type society than to a free one. And let\nus remember that the foreign policies of many of the allegedly neutral\nnations that receive our aid are not \u201cneutral\u201d at all. Is Sukarno\u2019s\nIndonesia neutral when it encourages Red Chinese aggression? Or Nehru\u2019s\nIndia when it censures the Western effort to recover Suez but refuses\nto censure the Soviet invasion of Hungary? Or Nasser\u2019s United Arab\nRepublic which equips its armed forces with Communist weapons and\nCommunist personnel? Is American aid likely to make these nations less\npro-Communist? Has it?\n\nBut let us, for the moment, concede the validity of the \u201cstomach\ntheory,\u201d and ask a further question: Is our foreign aid program the\nkind that will bring prosperity to underdeveloped countries? We\nAmericans believe--and we can cite one hundred and fifty years of\nexperience to support the belief--that the way to build a strong\neconomy is to encourage the free play of economic forces: free capital,\nfree labor, a free market. Yet every one of the \u201cneutral\u201d countries we\nare aiding is committed to a system of State Socialism. Our present\npolicy of government-to-government aid strengthens Socialism in those\ncountries. We are not only perpetuating the inefficiency and waste that\nalways attends government-controlled economies; by strengthening the\nhand of those governments, we are making it more difficult for free\nenterprise to take hold. For this reason alone, we should eliminate\nall government-to-government capital assistance and encourage the\nsubstitution of American private investment.\n\nOur present Foreign Aid program, in sum, is not only ill-administered,\nbut ill-conceived. It has not, in the majority of cases, made the free\nworld stronger; it has made America weaker; and it has created in minds\nthe world over an image of a nation that puts prime reliance, not on\nspiritual and human values, but on the material things that are the\nstock-in-trade of Communist propaganda. To this extent we have adopted\nCommunist doctrine.\n\nIn the future, if our methods are to be in tune with our true\nobjectives, we will confine foreign aid to military and technical\nassistance to those nations that need it and that are committed to a\ncommon goal of defeating world Communism.\n\n\nNEGOTIATIONS\n\nAs I write, the world is waiting for another round of diplomatic\nconferences between East and West. A full scale summit meeting is\nscheduled for Spring; later on, President Eisenhower and Premier\nKhrushchev will have further talks in the Soviet Union. And we are told\nthat this is only the beginning of a long-range American policy to try\nto settle world problems by \u201cnegotiation.\u201d\n\nAs the preparations for the Spring meetings go forward, I am struck by\na singular fact: no one on our side claims--let alone believes--that\nthe West will be stronger after these new negotiations than it is\ntoday. The same was true last Summer. We agreed to \u201cnegotiate\u201d about\nBerlin--not because we hoped to gain anything by such talks--but\nbecause the Communists had created a \u201ccrisis,\u201d and we could think of\nnothing better to do about it than go to the conference table. After\nall, we assured ourselves, there is no harm in talking.\n\nI maintain there _is_ harm in talking under present conditions. There\nare several reasons why this is so. First of all, Communists do not\nlook upon negotiations, as we do, as an effort to reach an agreement.\nFor them, negotiations are simply an _instrument_ of political\nwarfare. For them, a summit meeting is another battle in the struggle\nfor the world. A diplomatic conference, in Communist language, is a\n\u201cpropaganda forum from which to speak to the masses over the heads of\ntheir leaders.\u201d\n\nOf course, if the Communists can obtain a formal agreement beneficial\nto them, so much the better. But if not the negotiations themselves\nwill provide victory enough. For example, when the Soviets challenged\nour rights in West Berlin, we handed them a victory by the mere\nact of sitting down at the conference table. By agreeing to\nnegotiate on that subject, we agreed that our rights in Berlin were\n\u201cnegotiable\u201d--something they never were before. Thus we acknowledged,\nin effect, the inadequacy of our position, and the world now expects\nus to adjust it as proof of our good faith. Our answer to Khrushchev\u2019s\nultimatum should have been that the status of West Berlin concerns only\nWest Berliners and the occupying powers, and is therefore not a matter\nthat we are prepared to discuss with the Soviet Union. That would have\nbeen the end of the Berlin \u201ccrisis.\u201d\n\nThe Berlin situation illustrates another reason why the West is at an\ninherent disadvantage in negotiating with the Communists. The central\nstrategic fact of the Cold War, as it is presently fought, is that\nthe Communists are on the offensive and we are on the defensive. The\nSoviet Union is always moving ahead, always trying to get something\nfrom the free world; the West endeavors, at best, to hold what it has.\nTherefore, the focal point of negotiations is invariably somewhere\nin the non-Communist world. Every conference between East and West\ndeals with some territory or right belonging to the free world which\nthe Communists covet. Conversely, since the free world does not seek\nthe liberation of Communist territory, the possibility of Communist\nconcessions never arises. Once the West did attempt to use the\nconference table for positive gain. At Geneva, in 1955, President\nEisenhower told the Soviets he wanted to discuss the status of the\nsatellite nations of Eastern Europe. He was promptly advised that the\nSoviet Union did not consider the matter a legitimate subject for\nnegotiation, and that was that. Now since we are not permitted to talk\nabout what _we_ can get, the only interesting question at an East-West\nconference is what the Communists can get. Under such conditions, we\ncan never win. At best we can hope for a stalemate that will place us\nexactly where we started.\n\nThere is still another reason for questioning the value of\nnegotiations. Assume that somehow we achieve an agreement we think\nadvances our interests. Is there any reason for supposing the\nCommunists will keep it one moment longer than suits their purpose? We,\nand they, are different in this respect. We keep our word. The long and\nperfidious Communist record of breaking agreements and treaties proves\nthat the Soviet Union will not keep any agreement that is not to its\nadvantage to keep. It follows that the only agreement worth making with\nthe Soviets is one that will be self-enforceable--which means one that\nis in the Kremlin\u2019s interest to keep. But if that is the case, why\nbother to \u201cnegotiate\u201d about it? If an action is in the interest of the\nSoviet Union, the Kremlin will go ahead and perform it without feeling\nany need to make it the subject of a formal treaty.\n\nThe next time we are urged to rush to the conference table in order to\n\u201crelax world tensions,\u201d let our reaction be determined by this simple\nfact: the only \u201ctensions\u201d that exist between East and West have been\ncreated, and deliberately so, by the Communists. They can therefore\nbe \u201crelaxed\u201d by the Kremlin\u2019s unilateral act. The moment we decide to\nrelax tensions by a \u201cnegotiated compromise\u201d we have decided to yield\nsomething of value to the West.\n\n\nTHE \u201cEXCHANGE\u201d PROGRAM\n\nIn recent months, the so-called exchange program has become an\nincreasingly prominent feature of American foreign policy. The program\nbegan modestly enough in 1955 at the Geneva Summit Meeting, when we\nagreed with the Soviets to promote \u201ccultural exchanges\u201d between the two\ncountries. Since then we have exchanged everything from opera companies\nand basketball teams to trade exhibitions and heads of governments. We\nare told that these exchanges are our best hope of peace--that if only\nthe American and Russian peoples can learn to \u201cunderstand\u201d each other,\nthey will be able to reconcile their differences.\n\nThe claim that the conflict between the Soviets and ourselves stems\nfrom a \u201clack of understanding\u201d is one of the great political fables of\nour time. _Whose_ lack of understanding?\n\nAre the American people ill-informed as to the nature of Communism\nand of the Soviet state? True, some Americans fail to grasp how evil\nthe Soviet system really is. But a performance by the Bolshoi Ballet,\nor a tour of the United States by Nikita Khrushchev, is certainly not\ncalculated to correct _that_ deficiency.\n\nWhat of the Soviet leaders? Are _they_ misled? All of the evidence is\nthat the men in the Kremlin have a greater knowledge of America than\nmany of our own leaders. They know about our political system, our\nindustrial capacity, our way of life--and would like to destroy it all.\n\nWhat about the Russian people? We are repeatedly told that the Russian\nman-on-the-street is woefully ignorant of the American way, and that\nour trade exhibition in Moscow, for example, contributed vastly to his\nknowledge and thus to his appreciation of America. Assume this is true.\nIs it relevant? As long as the Russian people do not control their\ngovernment, it makes little difference whether they think well of us\nor ill. It is high time that our leaders stopped treating the Russian\npeople and the Soviet government as one and the same thing. The Russian\npeople, we may safely assume, are basically on our side (whether or not\nthey have the opportunity to listen to American musicians); but their\nsympathy will not help us win the Cold War as long as all power is\nheld firmly in the hands of the Communist ruling class.\n\nThe exchange program, in Soviet eyes, is simply another operation in\nCommunist political warfare. The people the Kremlin sends over here\nare, to a man, trained agents of Soviet policy. Some of them are spies,\nseeking information; all of them are trusted carriers of Communist\npropaganda. Their mission is not cultural, but political. Their aim is\nnot to inform, but to mislead. Their assignment is not to convey a true\nimage of the Soviet Union, but a false image. The Kremlin\u2019s hope is\nthat they will persuade the American people to forget the ugly aspects\nof Soviet life, and the danger that the Soviet system poses to American\nfreedom.\n\nIt is a mistake to measure the success of this Communist operation\nby the extent to which it converts Americans to Communism. By that\ntest, of course, the operation is almost a complete failure. But the\nKremlin\u2019s aim is not to make Americans _approve_ of Communism, much as\nthey would like that; it is to make us _tolerant_ of Communism. The\nKremlin knows that our willingness to make sacrifices to halt Communist\nexpansion varies in direct ratio as we are _hostile_ to Communism.\nThey know that if Americans regard the Soviet Union as a dangerous,\nimplacable enemy, Communism will not be able to conquer the world. The\nCommunists\u2019 purpose, then, is to show that Khrushchev does not have\nhorns,--that he is fundamentally a nice fellow; that the Soviet people\nare--\u201cordinary people\u201d just like ourselves; that Communism is just\nanother political system.\n\nIt would not have made sense, midway in the Second World War, to\npromote a Nazi-American exchange program or to invite Hitler to\nmake a state visit to the United States. Unless we cherish victory\nless today than we did then, we will be equally reluctant to treat\nCommunist agents as friends and welcome guests. The exchange program\nis a Communist confidence game. Let us not be taken in by it. Let us\nremember that American confidence in the Soviet government is the very\nlast thing we want.\n\nMany people contend that a \u201cnormalization\u201d of Soviet-American\nrelations, as envisaged by the exchange program, is only a logical\nextension of granting diplomatic recognition to Communist governments.\nI agree. Accordingly, I think it would be wise for the United\nStates to re-examine the question of its diplomatic relations with\nCommunist regimes. We often hear that recognition permits us to\ngather information in Communist countries. I am unaware, however, of\nany advantage that our diplomatic mission in Moscow confers along\nthese lines that does not doubly accrue to the Soviet Union from its\ndiplomatic spy corps in Washington and other American cities. Espionage\npossibilities aside, I am quite certain that our entire approach to\nthe Cold War would change for the better the moment we announced that\nthe United States does not regard Mr. Khrushchev\u2019s murderous claque\nas the legitimate rulers of the Russian people or of any other people.\nNot only would withdrawal of recognition stiffen the American people\u2019s\nattitude toward Communism; it would also give heart to the enslaved\npeoples and help them to overthrow their captors. Our present policy\nof not recognizing Red China is eminently right, and the reasons\nbehind that policy apply equally to the Soviet Union and its European\nsatellites. If our objective is to win the Cold War, we will start now\nby denying our moral support to the very regimes we mean to defeat.\n\n\nDISARMAMENT\n\nFor many years, our policy-makers have paid lip-service to the idea of\ndisarmament. This seems to be one of the ways, in modern diplomacy,\nof proving your virtue. Recently, however--under strong Communist\npropaganda pressure--we have acted as though we mean this talk to be\ntaken seriously. I cite our government\u2019s momentous decision to suspend\nnuclear tests.\n\nStudents of history have always recognized that armament races are a\nsymptom of international friction--not a cause of it. Peace has never\nbeen achieved, and it will not in our time, by rival nations suddenly\ndeciding to turn their swords into plowshares. No nation in its right\nmind will give up the means of defending itself without first making\nsure that hostile powers are no longer in a position to threaten it.\n\nThe Communist leaders are, of course, in their right minds. They would\nnot dream of adopting a policy that would leave them, on balance,\nrelatively weaker than before they adopted such a policy. They might\npreach general disarmament for propaganda purposes. They also might\nseriously promote mutual disarmament in certain weapons in the\nknowledge that their superior strength in other weapons would leave\nthem, on balance, decisively stronger than the West. Thus, in the light\nof the West\u2019s weakness in conventional weapons, it might make sense for\nthe Communists to seek disarmament in the nuclear field; if all nuclear\nweapons suddenly ceased to exist, much of the world would immediately\nbe laid open to conquest by the masses of Russian and Chinese manpower.\n\nAmerican leaders have not shown a comparable solicitude for our\nsecurity needs. After the Second World War, the United States had a\nconventional military establishment rivaling the Soviet Union\u2019s, and an\nabsolute monopoly in nuclear power. The former weapon we hastily and\nirresponsibly dismantled. The latter we failed to exploit politically,\nand then we proceeded to fritter away our lead by belated entry into\nthe hydrogen bomb and guided missile fields. The result is that we\nare out-classed in the conventional means for waging land warfare;\nregarding nuclear weapons, we are approaching the point, if it has not\nalready been reached, where Communist power is equal to our own.\n\nTo the impending physical parity in nuclear weapons must be added a\npsychological factor assiduously cultivated by Communist propaganda.\nThe horrors of all-out warfare are said to be so great that no nation\nwould consider resorting to nuclear weapons unless under direct attack\nby those same weapons. Now the moment our leaders really accept this,\nstrategic nuclear weapons will be neutralized and Communist armies\nwill be able to launch limited wars without fear of retaliation by our\nStrategic Air Command. I fear they are coming to accept it, and thus\nthat a military and psychological situation is fast developing in which\naggressive Communist forces will be free to maneuver under the umbrella\nof nuclear terror.\n\nIt is in this context that we must view the Communist propaganda\ndrive for a permanent ban on the testing of nuclear weapons, and the\ninclination of our own leaders to go along with the proposal. There are\ntwo preliminary reasons why such proposals ought to be firmly rejected.\nFirst, there is no reliable means of preventing the Communists from\nsecretly breaking such an agreement. Our most recent tests demonstrated\nthat underground atomic explosions can be set off without detection.\nSecondly, we cannot hope to maintain even an effective _strategic_\ndeterrent unless we keep our present nuclear arsenal up to date; this\nrequires testing. But the main point I want to make is that tests\nare needed to develop _tactical_ nuclear weapons for possible use\nin limited wars. Our military experts have long recognized that for\nlimited warfare purposes we must have a weapons superiority to offset\nthe Communists\u2019 manpower superiority. This means we must develop\nand perfect a variety of small, clean nuclear weapons; and this in\nturn means: testing. The development of such a weapons system is the\nonly way in which America will be able to fight itself out of the\ndilemma--one horn of which is superior Communist manpower, the other,\nthe impending neutralization of strategic nuclear weapons.\n\nOur government was originally pushed into suspending tests by\nCommunist-induced hysteria on the subject of radio-active fallout.\nHowever one may rate that danger, it simply has no bearing on the\nproblem at hand. The facts are that there is practically no fallout\nfrom tests conducted above the earth\u2019s atmosphere, and none at all\nfrom underground tests. Therefore, the only excuse for suspending\ntests is that our forbearance somehow contributes to peace. And my\nanswer is that I am unable to see how peace is brought any nearer by a\npolicy that may reduce our relative military strength. Such a policy\nmakes sense only under the assumption that Communist leaders have\ngiven up their plan for world revolution and will settle for peaceful\ncoexistence--an assumption we make at the risk of losing our national\nlife.\n\nIf our objective is victory over Communism, we must achieve\nsuperiority in all of the weapons--military, as well as political and\neconomic--that may be useful in reaching that goal. Such a program\ncosts money, but so long as the money is spent wisely and efficiently,\nI would spend it. I am not in favor of \u201ceconomizing\u201d on the nation\u2019s\nsafety. As a Conservative, I deplore the huge tax levy that is needed\nto finance the world\u2019s number-one military establishment. But even more\ndo I deplore the prospect of a foreign conquest, which the absence of\nthat establishment would quickly accomplish.\n\n\nUNITED NATIONS\n\nSupport of the United Nations, our leaders earnestly proclaim, is one\nof the cornerstones of American foreign policy. I confess to being more\ninterested in whether American foreign policy has the support of the\nUnited Nations.\n\nHere, again, it seems to me that our approach to foreign affairs\nsuffers from a confusion in objectives. Is the perpetuation of an\ninternational debating forum, for its own sake, the primary objective\nof American policy? If so, there is much to be said for our past record\nof subordinating our national interest to that of the United Nations.\nIf, on the other hand, our primary objective is victory over Communism,\nwe will, as a matter of course, view such organizations as the UN\nas a possible _means_ to that end. Once the question is asked--Does\nAmerica\u2019s participation in the United Nations help or hinder her\nstruggle against world Communism?--it becomes clear that our present\ncommitment to the UN deserves re-examination.\n\nThe United Nations, we must remember, is in part a Communist\norganization. The Communists always have at least one seat in its\nmajor policy-making body, the Security Council; and the Soviet Union\u2019s\npermanent veto power in that body allows the Kremlin to block any\naction, on a substantial issue, that is contrary to its interests.\nThe Communists also have a sizeable membership in the UN\u2019s other\npolicy-making body, the General Assembly. Moreover, the UN\u2019s working\nstaff, the Secretariat, is manned by hundreds of Communist agents\nwho are frequently in a position to sabotage those few UN policies\nthat _are_ contrary to Communist interests. Finally, a great number of\nnon-Communist United Nations are sympathetic to Soviet aims--or, at\nbest, are unsympathetic to ours.\n\nWe therefore should not be surprised that many of the policies that\nemerge from the deliberations of the United Nations are not policies\nthat are in the best interest of the United States. United Nations\npolicy is, necessarily, the product of many different views--some of\nthem friendly, some of them indifferent to our interests, some of them\nmortally hostile. And the result is that our national interests usually\nsuffer when we subordinate our own policy to the UN\u2019s. In nearly every\ncase in which we have called upon the United Nations to do our thinking\nfor us, and to make our policy for us--whether during the Korean War,\nor in the Suez crisis, or following the revolution in Iraq--we have\nbeen a less effective foe of Communism than we otherwise might have\nbeen.\n\nUnlike America, the Communists do not respect the UN and do not permit\ntheir policies to be affected by it. If the \u201copinion of mankind,\u201d as\nreflected by a UN resolution, goes against them, they--in effect--tell\nmankind to go fly a kite. Not so with us; we would rather be approved\nthan succeed, and so are likely to adjust our own views to conform with\na United Nations majority. This is not the way to win the Cold War. I\nrepeat: Communism will not be beaten by a policy that is the common\ndenominator of the foreign policies of 80-odd nations, some of which\nare our enemies, nearly all of which are less determined than we to\nsave the world from Communist domination. Let us, then, have done with\nsubmitting major policy decisions to a forum where the opinions of the\nSultan of Yeman count equally with ours; where the vote of the United\nStates can be cancelled out by the likes of \u201cByelorussia.\u201d\n\nI am troubled by several other aspects of our UN commitment. First--and\nhere again our Cold War interests are damaged--the United Nations\nprovides a unique forum for Communist propaganda. We too, of course,\ncan voice our views at the UN; but the Communists\u2019 special advantage\nis that their lies and misrepresentations are elevated to the level of\nserious international debate. By recognizing the right of Communist\nregimes to participate in the UN as equals, and by officially\nacknowledging them as \u201cpeace-loving,\u201d we grant Communist propaganda a\npresumption of reasonableness and plausibility it otherwise would not\nhave.\n\nSecond, the UN places an unwarranted financial burden on the American\ntaxpayer. The Marxist formula, \u201cfrom each according to his ability\n...\u201d--under which contributions to the UN and its specialized agencies\nare determined--does not tally with the American concept of justice.\nThe United States is currently defraying roughly a third of all United\nNations expenses. That assessment should be drastically reduced. The UN\nshould not operate as a charity. Assessments should take into account\nthe benefits received by the contributor-nation.\n\nFinally, I fear that our involvement in the United Nations may be\nleading to an unconstitutional surrender of American sovereignty. Many\nUN activities have already made strong inroads against the sovereign\npowers of Member Nations. This is neither the time nor place to\ndiscuss the merits of yielding sovereign American rights--other than\nto record my unequivocal opposition to the idea. It is both the time\nand place, however, to insist that any such discussion take place\nwithin the framework of a proposed constitutional amendment--and not,\nclandestinely, in the headquarters of some UN agency.\n\nWithdrawal from the United Nations is probably not the answer to\nthese problems. For a number of reasons that course is unfeasible.\nWe should make sure, however, that the nature of our commitment is\nsuch as to advance American interests; and that will involve changes\nin some of our present attitudes and policies toward the UN. Let\nthe UN firsters--of whom there are many in this country--put their\nenthusiasm for \u201cinternational cooperation\u201d in proper perspective. Let\nthem understand that victory over Communism must come _before_ the\nachievement of lasting peace. Let them, in a word, keep their eyes on\nthe target.\n\n\nAID TO COMMUNIST GOVERNMENTS\n\nThere is one aspect of our policy that _is_ offensive-minded--in the\nminds of its authors, anyway. Its effect, unfortunately, is exactly\nopposite to the one intended.\n\nSome time ago our leaders advanced the theory that Communist satellite\nregimes would, with our help, gradually break their ties with the\nSoviet Union and \u201cevolve\u201d political systems more in keeping with our\nnotions of freedom and justice. Accordingly, America adopted the policy\nof giving aid to Communist governments whose relations with Moscow\nseemed to be strained. And that policy gave birth to a slogan: \u201cAmerica\nseeks the liberation of enslaved peoples--not by revolution--but\nthrough evolution.\u201d Under the aegis of this slogan, we are sending\nhundreds of millions of dollars to the Communist government of Poland,\nhaving already given more than a billion dollars to the Communist\ngovernment of Yugoslavia.\n\nIn my view, this money has not only been wasted; it has positively\npromoted the Communist cause. It has _not_ made Communist governments\nless Communist. It has _not_ caused Communist governments to\nchange sides in the Cold War. It _has_ made it easier for Communist\ngovernments to keep their subjects enslaved. And none of these results\nshould have come as a surprise.\n\nOne does not have to take the view that a Communist regime will never\n\u201cevolve\u201d into a non-Communist one (though I tend to it) in order to\nsee that this is practically impossible as long as the Soviet Union\npossesses the military and political power to prevent it. The Kremlin\nmay, for its own purposes, permit certain \u201cliberalization\u201d tendencies\nin satellite countries; it may even permit small deviations from the\napproved Soviet foreign policy line. It will do so sometimes to confuse\nthe West, sometimes as a prudent means of relieving internal pressures.\nBut it will never let things go too far. Hungary proved that. The\nmoment a Communist government threatens to become a non-Communist one,\nor threatens to align itself with the West against the Soviet Union,\nthe Kremlin will take steps to bring the defecting government into line.\n\nHungary proved this truth, and Poland has proved that dissident\nCommunists learned it. Western leaders, unfortunately, were much\nless perceptive. In the Fall of 1956, there appeared to be a breach\nbetween Gomulka\u2019s government and the Kremlin. Many Westerners joyfully\nproclaimed that Poland was pulling away from Communism, and hoping\nto hasten this movement, our government began to send the Gomulka\nregime American aid. The succeeding years witnessed two facts: 1. Our\nmoney made it easier for Gomulka\u2019s regime to deal with its economic\nproblems; 2. Gomulka moved into an even closer relationship with the\nSoviet government. Gomulka knew, as American policy-makers ought to\nhave known, that the price of abandoning Communism is a Budapest-type\nblood bath. This, of course, need not be the case were America prepared\nto come to the aid of people who want to strike out for freedom. But as\nlong as we give Soviet military forces a free hand in Eastern Europe,\nit is the height of folly to try to bribe Communist governments into\nbecoming our friends.\n\nWe must realize that the captive _peoples_ are our friends and\npotential allies--not their rulers. A truly offensive-minded strategy\nwould recognize that the captive peoples are our strongest weapon in\nthe war against Communism, and would encourage them to overthrow their\ncaptors. A policy of strengthening their captors can only postpone that\nupheaval within the Communist Empire that is our best hope of defeating\nCommunism without resorting to nuclear war.\n\n\nTOWARD VICTORY\n\nBy measuring each aspect of our foreign policy against the standard--Is\nit helpful in defeating the enemy?--we can understand why the past\nfourteen years have been marked by frustration and failure. We have not\ngotten ahead because we have been travelling the wrong road.\n\nIt is less easy to stake out the right road. For in terms of our own\nexperience it is a new road we seek, and one therefore that will hold\nchallenges and perils that are different (though hardly graver) from\nthose with which we are now familiar. Actually, the \u201cnew\u201d road is as\nold as human history: it is the one that successful political and\nmilitary leaders, having arrived at a dispassionate \u201cestimate of the\nsituation,\u201d always follow when they are in a war they mean to win. From\nour own estimate of the situation, we know the _direction_ we must\ntake; and our standard--Is it helpful in defeating Communism?--will\nprovide guideposts all along the way. There are some that can be\nobserved even now:\n\n1. The key guidepost is the Objective, and we must never lose sight of\nit. It is not to wage a struggle against Communism, but to win it.\n\n\nOUR GOAL MUST BE VICTORY\n\n2. Our strategy must be primarily offensive in nature. Given the\ndynamic, revolutionary character of the enemy\u2019s challenge, we cannot\nwin merely by trying to hold our own. In addition to parrying his\nblows, we must strike our own. In addition to guarding our frontiers,\nwe must try to puncture his. In addition to keeping the free world\nfree, we must try to make the Communist world free. To these ends,\nwe must always try to engage the enemy at times and places, and with\nweapons, of our own choosing.\n\n3. We must strive to achieve and maintain military superiority.\nMere parity will not do. Since we can never match the Communists\nin manpower, our equipment and weapons must more than offset his\nadvantage in numbers. We must also develop a limited war capacity. For\nthis latter purpose, we should make every effort to achieve decisive\nsuperiority in small, clean nuclear weapons.\n\n4. We must make America economically strong. We have already seen why\neconomic energy must be released from government strangulation if\nindividual freedom is to survive. Economic emancipation is equally\nimperative if the nation is to survive. America\u2019s maximum economic\npower will be forged, not under bureaucratic direction, but in freedom.\n\n5. In all of our dealings with foreign nations, we must behave like a\ngreat power. Our national posture must reflect strength and confidence\nand purpose, as well as good will. We need not be bellicose, but\nneither should we encourage others to believe that American rights\ncan be violated with impunity. We must protect American nationals and\nAmerican property and American honor--everywhere. We may not make\nforeign peoples love us--no nation has ever succeeded in that--but\nwe can make _them respect us_. And _respect_ is the stuff of which\nenduring friendships and firm alliances are made.\n\n6. We should adopt a discriminating foreign aid policy. American aid\nshould be furnished only to friendly, anti-Communist nations that are\nwilling to join with us in the struggle for freedom. Moreover, our aid\nshould take the form of loans or technical assistance, not gifts. And\nwe should insist, moreover, that such nations contribute their fair\nshare to the common cause.\n\n7. We should declare the world Communist movement an outlaw in the\ncommunity of civilized nations. Accordingly, we should withdraw\ndiplomatic recognition from all Communist governments including that of\nthe Soviet Union, thereby serving notice on the world that we regard\nsuch governments as neither legitimate nor permanent.\n\n8. We should encourage the captive peoples to revolt against their\nCommunist rulers. This policy must be pursued with caution and\nprudence, as well as courage. For while our enslaved friends must\nbe told we are anxious to help them, we should discourage premature\nuprisings that have no chance of success. The freedom fighters must\nunderstand that the time and place and method of such uprisings will\nbe dictated by the needs of an overall world strategy. To this end we\nshould establish close liaison with underground leaders behind the\nIron Curtain, furnishing them with printing presses, radios, weapons,\ninstructors: the paraphernalia of a full-fledged Resistance.\n\n9. We should encourage friendly peoples that have the means and desire\nto do so to undertake offensive operations for the recovery of their\nhomelands. For example, should a revolt occur inside Red China, we\nshould encourage and support guerrilla operations on the mainland by\nthe Free Chinese. Should the situation develop favorably, we should\nencourage the South Koreans and the South Vietnamese to join Free\nChinese forces in a combined effort to liberate the enslaved peoples of\nAsia.\n\n10. We must--ourselves--be prepared to undertake military operations\nagainst vulnerable Communist regimes. Assume we have developed nuclear\nweapons that can be used in land warfare, and that we have equipped our\nEuropean divisions accordingly. Assume also a major uprising in Eastern\nEurope, such as occurred in Budapest in 1956. In such a situation,\nwe ought to present the Kremlin with an ultimatum forbidding Soviet\nintervention, and be prepared, if the ultimatum is rejected, to move a\nhighly mobile task force equipped with appropriate nuclear weapons to\nthe scene of the revolt. Our objective would be to confront the Soviet\nUnion with superior force in the immediate vicinity of the uprising and\nto compel a Soviet withdrawal. An actual clash between American and\nSoviet armies would be unlikely; the mere threat of American action,\ncoupled with the Kremlin\u2019s knowledge that the fighting would occur amid\na hostile population and could easily spread to other areas, would\nprobably result in Soviet acceptance of the ultimatum. The Kremlin\nwould also be put on notice, of course, that resort to long-range\nbombers and missiles would prompt automatic retaliation in kind. On\nthis level, we would invite the Communist leaders to choose between\ntotal destruction of the Soviet Union, and accepting a local defeat....\nHad we the will and the means for it in 1956, such a policy would have\nsaved the Hungarian Revolution.\n\nThis is hard counsel. But it is hard, I think, not for what it says,\nbut for saying it openly. Such a policy involves the risk of war? Of\ncourse; but any policy, short of surrender, does that. Any policy that\nsuccessfully frustrates the Communists\u2019 aim of world domination runs\nthe risk that the Kremlin will choose to lose in a kamikaze-finish. It\nis hard counsel because it frankly acknowledges that war may be the\nprice of freedom, and thus intrudes on our national complacency. But is\nit really so hard when it goes on to search for the most likely means\nof safeguarding both our lives _and_ our freedom? Is it so hard when\nwe think of the risks that were taken to create our country?--risks on\nwhich our ancestors openly and proudly staked their \u201clives, fortunes,\nand sacred honor.\u201d Will we do less to _save_ our country?\n\nThe risks I speak of are risks on our terms, instead of on Communist\nterms. _We_, not they, would select the time and place for a test\nof wills. _We_, not they, would have the opportunity to bring\nmaximum strength to bear on that test. _They_, not we, would have to\ndecide between fighting for limited objectives under unfavorable\ncircumstances, or backing down. And these are immense advantages.\n\nThe future, as I see it, will unfold along one of two paths. Either\nthe Communists will retain the offensive; will lay down one challenge\nafter another; will invite us in local crisis after local crisis to\nchoose between all-out war and limited retreat; and will force us,\nultimately, to surrender or accept war under the most disadvantageous\ncircumstances. Or _we_ will summon the will and the means for taking\nthe initiative, and wage a war of attrition against them--and hope,\nthereby, to bring about the internal disintegration of the Communist\nempire. One course runs the risk of war, and leads, in any case, to\nprobable defeat. The other runs the risk of war, and holds forth the\npromise of victory. For Americans who cherish their lives, but their\nfreedom more, the choice cannot be difficult.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Illustration]\n\n  PUBLISHERS PRINTING CO., INC.\n  SHEPHERDSVILLE, KENTUCKY\n  _Quality Book Manufacturers Since 1866_\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTranscriber\u2019s Notes:\n\nFootnotes have been moved to the end of each chapter and relabeled\nconsecutively through the document.\n\nPunctuation has been made consistent.\n\nVariations in spelling and hyphenation were retained as they appear in\nthe original publication, except that obvious typographical errors have\nbeen corrected.\n\nThe following changes were made:\n\np. 46: is changed to are (conceived, are an)\n\np. 118: paring changed to parrying (to parrying his)","title":"The conscience of a Conservative","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":26974}