'Who Tampers with the Soul of America?' . .
EDITOR S NOTE: Reading speeches is almost a daily
routine in the newspaper business. Many of the speeches are
good and some are outstanding.
On this page is the entire text of a speech which, we
believe, is outstanding. It is worthy reading for every Ameri
can and is printed by The Frontiersman as a public service.
It is an absorbing speech, it is exciting. It hits a button
to prompt solid thinking for adults and teenagers alike.
The speech was delivered recently at the Inland Daily
Press Association convention held in Chicago. The speaker
was Jenkin Lloyd Jones, editor of the Tulsa (Oklahoma)
Tribune. Here is what he had to say:
I rise today and make some comments about the moral
climate of America, and about our responsibilities therefor
as temporary custodians of America’s press. I speak in a very
old tradition.
The calamity howler! It is customary to dismiss such
fogeyism as I am about to display with a tolerant laugh. For
while it was freely predicted all through the ages that the
world was going to Hell; it hasn't gone to Hell yet. Who can
deny that in practically all the crafts and certainly all of the
sciences we are farther advanced than we ever have been'.’
Why not be cheerfully optimistic?
I think I can tell you why. Human progress has never
been steady. It has washed back and forth like waves upon
a beach. Happily, there has also been an incoming tide, so
the waves have washed higher and higher as each great
civilization came on.
Littered With Bones
But the pathway of history is littered with the
bones of dead states and fallen empires. And they were not.
in most cases, promptly replaced by something better. Nearly
a thousand years elapsed between the fall of Western Rome
and the rise of the Renaissance, and in between we had the
Dark Ages in which nearly all of man's institutions were in
ferior to those which had gone before. I don't want my child
ren's children to go through a couple of centuries of dialectic
materialism before the sun comes up again.
So the Jeremiahs haven't been so wrong, after all. It
is sad to watch the beginnings of decay. It is sad to see an Age
of Pericles replaced by the drunken riots of Alcibiades. There
was, indeed, just cause for gloom when into palaces of the
Caesars went Nero and Caligula, and when the once-noble
Praetorian Guard became a gang of assassins willing to sell
the throne to the top bidder.
Alaric's Goths finally poured over the walls of Rome. But
it was not that the walls were low. It was that Rome, itself, was
low. The sensual life of Pompeii, the orgies on Lake Traisi
mene, the gradually weakened fibre of a once self-disciplined
people that reduced them at least to seeking safety in mer
cenaries and the payment of tribute—all these brought Rome
down. She went down too early. She had much to teach the
world.
And so I look upon our own country and much that I see
disturbs me. But we are a great people. We have a noble
tradition. We have much to teach the world, and if America
should go down soon it would be too earlv.
i
One thing is certain. We shall be given no centuries
for a leisurely and comfortable decay. We have an enemy
now—remorseless, crude, brutal and cocky. However, much
the leaders of the Communist conspiracy may lie to their
subjects about our motives, about our policies and aims, one
thing they believe themselves implicitly—and that is that
we are in an advanced state of moral decline.
When Nikita Khruschev visited Hollywood he was shown
only one movie set, that of a wild dance scene in Can-Can.
He said it represented decadence and I am sure he really
thought so. It is a dogma of current Communist faith that Am
erica is Sodom and Gomorrah ripening for the kill.
Do you know what scares me about the Communists? It
is not their political system, which is primitive and savage.
It is not their economic system which works so badly that
progress in a few directions is purchased at the price of pro
gress in all the rest. It is their puritanism. It is their dedication
and self-sacrifice.
It does no good to comfort ourselves with the reflection
that these are products of endless brainwashings, of incessant
counter-information and contrary arguments. This dedication
propaganda, of deprivation by censorship and jamming of
coventer-information and contrary arguments. This dedication
is there. The confidence that they are morally superior is
there.
What Russians Think
The naive questions of your Intourist guide reveal
only too quickly that she thinks she is taking to a self-indul
gent fop from the court of some latter-day Louis XIV. In the
school yard the children rush up to show you, not their yo-yos,
but their scholarship medals. Ar.d when you offer them new
Lincoln pennies as souvenirs they rip off their little Young
Pioneer buttons and hand them to you, proud that they are
not taking gifts, but are making a fair exchange.
The Russian stage is as austere as the Victorian stage.
Russian literature may be corny but it is clean, and it glorifies
the Russian people and exudes optimism and promise. Russian
art is stiffly representational, but the paintings and the sculp
ture strive to depict beauty and heroism—Russian beauty, of
course, and Russian heroism.
And what of us?
Well, let’s take them one at a time.
We are now at the end of the third decade of the national
insanity known as “progressive education.” This was the
education where everybody passes, where the report cards
were non-committal lest the failure be faced with the fact
of his failure, where all moved at a snail pace like a trans
atlantic convoy so that the slowest need not be left behind,
and all proceeded toward adulthood in the lockstep of “to
getherness.” Thus the competition that breeds excellence was
to be sacrificed for the benefit of something called “life adjust
ment.”
With what results? We have watched juvenile delinquency
climb steadily. We have produced tens of thousands of high
school graduates who move their lips as they read and cannot
write a coherent paragraph. While our Russian contempories.
who were supposed to be dedicated to the mass man have
been constructing an intellectual elite we have been engaged
in the wholesale production of mediocrity. What a switch 1
A Look at Schools
When was the last time you. as editors and publishers, ex
amined the curricula of your local schools? How did your
schools rank on the standarized Iowa tests? When have you
looked at your schools’ report cards and the philosophy be
hind their grading system? Have you asked to examine any
senior English themes? Have you offered any recognition to
your schools’ best scholars to compare to the recognition
you accord your schools’ best football players?
For the funny thing about “progressive educators" is that
theory vanishes when the referee's whistle blows for the
kickoff. In the classroom they pretend to grade subjectively,
against the students’ supposed capacity, lest he be humiliated
by natural inadequacy. But on the football field they never
put in a one-legged halfback on the theory that, considering
his disability he’s a great halfback. They put in the best half
back they've got. period. The ungifted sit on the bench or
back in the stands even though they, too, might thirst for
glory. If our schools were as anxious to turn out brains as
they are to turn out winning football teams this strange con
tradiction wouldn't exist.
Having neglected disciplines in education is was quite
logical that we should reject disciplines in art. The great
painters and sculptors of the past studied anatomy so diligently
that they often indulged in their own body-snatching And
today, after many centuries, we stare at the ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel or at the walls of the Reichsmusee and marvel
at their works.
But this self-discipline is of little concern to the modern
non-objective painter. All he needs is pigment and a press
agent. He can throw colors at a canvas and the art world
will discover him. He can stack bits of glass, old rags and
quids of used chewing tobacco on a board and he is a social
critic. He can drive a car back and forth in pools of paint
and Life magazine will write him up.
Talent is for squares. What you need is vast effrontery.
If you undertake to paint a cow it must look something like
a cow. That takes at least a sign-painter’s ability. But you
can claim to paint a picture of your psyche and no matter
what the result who is to say what your psyche looks like?
So our museums are filled with daubs being stared at by
confused citizens who haven't the guts to admit they are
confused.
But the age of fakerv in art is a mild cross that American
civilization bears. Much more serious is our capability for
righteous indignation.
Preoccupied With Sin
Our Puritan ancestors were preoccupied with sin.
They were too preoccupied with it. They were hagridden and
guilt-ridden and theirs was a repressed and neurotic society.
But they had horsepower. They wrested livings from rocky
land, built our earliest colleges, started our literature, caused
our industrial revolution, and found time in between to fight
the Indians, the French and the British, to bawl for abolition,
women suffrage and prison reform, and to experiment with
graham crackers and bloomers. They were a tremendous
people.
And for all their exaggerated attention to sin, their phil
osophy rested on a great granite rock; Man was the master
of his soul. You didn't have to be bad. You could and should
be better. And if you wanted to escape the eternal fires you'd
damned well better be.
In recent years all this has changed in America. We have
decided that sin is largely imaginary. We have become en
amoured with “behavioristic psychology.” This holds that a
man is a product of his heredity and his environment, and
his behavior to a large degree is foreordained by both. He is
either a product of a happy combination of genes and chrom
osomes or an unhappy combination. He moves in an environ
ment that will tend to make him evil. He is just a chip tossed
by forces beyond his control and, therefore, not responsible.
Well, the theory that misbehavior can be cured by pulling
down tenements and erecting in their places elaborate public
housing is not holding water. The crime rates continue to rise
along with our outlays for social services. We speak of under
privilege. Yet the young men who swagger up and down
the streets, boldly flaunting their gang symbols on their
black jackets, are far more blessed in creature comforts, op
portunities for advancement, and freedom from drudgery
than 90 per cent of the children of the world. We have sown
the dragon's teeth in pseudo-scientific sentimentality, and
out of the ground has sprung the legion bearing switch-blade
knives and bicycle chains.
Clearly something is missing. Could it be what the world's
children have been given, the doctrine of individual respon
sibility?
Relief is gradually becoming an honorable career in
America. It is a pretty fair life if you have neither conscience
nor pride. The politicians will weep over you. The state will
give a mother a bonus for her illegitimate children, and if
she neglects them sufficiently she can save enough out of
her ADC payments to keep herself and her boy friend in wine
and gin. Nothing is your fault. And when the city fathers of a
harassed community like Newburgh suggest that ablebodied
welfare clients might sweep the streets the “liberal” editorial
ists arise, as one man. and denounce them for their medieval
cruelty.
I don't know how long Americans can stand this erosion
of principle. But I believe that some of my starry-eyed friends
are kidding themselves when they pretend that every plane
load of Puerto Ricans that puts down at Idlewild is equivalent
in potential to every shipload of Pilgrims that put into Ply
mouth. Nations are built by people capable of great energy
and self-discipline. I never heard of one put together by cha
cha-cha.
Foundation Of Jelly
The welfare state that taxes away the rewards for respon
sible behavior so that it can remove the age-old penalties
for irresponsible behavior is building on a foundation of jelly.
It is time we stopped this elaborate pretense that there is no
difference between the genuinely unfortunate and the mobs
or reliefers who start throwing bottles every time the cops
try to make legitimate arrest.
Finally, there is the status of our entertainment and our
literature.
Can anyone deny that movies are dirtier than ever? But
they don’t call it dirt. They call it “realism.” Why do we let
them fool us? Why do we nod owlishly when they tell us that
filth is merely a daring art form, that licentiousness is really
social comment? Isn’t it time we recognized Hollywood’s quest
for the fast buck for what it is? Isn’t it plain that the finan
cially-harrassed movie industry is putting gobs of sex in the
darkened driveins in an effort to lure curious teenagers away
from their TV sets? Last week the screen industry solemnly
announced that henceforth perversion and homosexuality
would no longer be barred from the screen provided the sub
jects were handled with “delicacy and taste.” Good Lord!
And we of the press are a party to the crime. Last year
the movie ads in our newspaper got so salacious and sugges
tive that the advertising manager and I decided to throw out
the worst and set up some standards. We thought that due to
our ukase there might be some interruptions in advertising
some shows. But no. Within a couple of hours the exhibitors
were down with much milder ads. How was this miracle ac
complished?
You Have A Choice
Well, it seems that the exhibitors are supplied with
different ads for each movie. If the publishers are dumb
enough to accept the most suggestive ones those are what
they get. But if publishers squawk the cleaner ads are sent
down. Isn't it time we all squawked?
I think it’s time we quit giving page one play to the extra
marital junkets of crooners. I think it is time we stopped treat
ing as glamorous and exciting the brazen shack-ups of screen
tramps. I think it is time we asked our Broadway and Holly
wood columnists if they can’t find something decent and in
spiring going on along their beats.
And the stage: They raided Minsky's so Minsky’s has
spread all over town. Bawdiness lias put on a dinner jacket
and seats in the orchestra that used to go for six-bits at the
Old Howard and Nichols’ Gayety are now scaled at $8.80.
Oh, yes. And we have lots of “realism." Incentuous Americans.
Perverted Americans. Degenerate Americans. Murderous Am
ericans.
How many of these “realistic” Americans do you know?
Two months ago an American touring company, sponsor
ed by the State Department and paid for by your tax dollars,
presented one of Tennessee Williams’ more depraved offer
ings to an audience in Rio de Janerio. The audience hooted
in disgust and walked out. And where did it walk? Right
across the street where a Russian ballet company was putting
on a beautiful performance for the glory of Russia! How dumb
can we get?
We are drowning our youngsters in violence, cynicism
and sadism piped into the living room and even the nursery.
The grandchilden of the kids who used to weep because The
Little Match Girl frozen to death now feel cheated if she isn’t
slugged, raped and thrown into a Bessemer converter.
And there’s our literature. The old eyepoppers of the past,
which tourists used to smuggle back from Paris under their
duty shirts, are now tame stuff. Compared to some of our
modern slush. “Ulysses” reads like the minutes of the Epworth
League. "Lady Chatterly’s Lover” has been draped with the
mantle of art, and it is now on sale in the corner drugstore to
your high-school-age son or daughter for 50 cents. Henry
Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer,” which resembles a collection of in
scriptions taken from privy walls, is about to join Lady Chat
terly. The quickbuck boys have apparently convinced our
bumfuzzled judges that there is no difference between a pep
show and a moral lecture.
And, of course, we have our latter-day historical novels
in which the romance of man’s upward movement from savag
ery is lost in a confused welter of bundlings and tumblings.
The foreign reader of one of these epics on the development
of the American West must marvel that our forefathers found
time to quell the Comanches, plow up Kansas and build the
transcontinental railroad while spending practically all their
time in the hay.
Tampering With Facts?
Don Maxwell of The Chicago Tribune has recently
asked his book department to quit advertising scatological
literature by including it in the list of best sellers. The critics
and the book publishers have denounced him for tampering
with the facts. I would like to raise a somewhat larger question.
Who is tampering with the soul of America?
For nations do have souls. They have collective person
alities. People who think well of themselves, eollecively
exhibit elan and enthusiasm and morale. When nations cease
believing in themselves, when they regard their institutions
with cynicism and their traditions with flippancy they will
not long remain great nations. When they seek learning with
out effort and wages without work they are beginning to
stagger. Where they become hedonistic and pleasure- oriented,
when their Boy Scouts on their 14-mile hikes start to hitch,
there’s trouble ahead. Where payola becomes a way of life,
expense account cheating common, and union goonery a
fiercely defended “right" that nation is in danger. And when
police departments attempt to control burglary by the novel
method of making it a department monopoly then the chasm
yawns.
Ladies and gentlemen: do not let me overdraw the pic
ture. This is still a great powerful, vibrant, able, optimistic
nation. Americans — our readers — do believe in themselves
and in their country.
We have reached the stomach-turning point. We have
reached the point where we should re-examine the debilitating
philosophy of permissiveness. Let this not be confused with
the philosophy of liberty. The school system that permits our
children to develop a quarter of their natural talents is not a
champion of our liberties. The healthy man who chooses to loaf
on unemployment compensation is not a defender of human
freedom. The playwright and author who would profit from
pandering to the worst that’s in us, are no friends of ours.
Revival Of An Idea
It is time we hit the sawdust trail. It is time we
revived the idea that there is such a thing as sin—just plain
old willful sin. It is time we brought self-discipline back into
style. And who has a greater responsibility at this hour than
we, the gentlemen of the press?
So I suggest:
Let’s look to our eductional institutions at the local level,
and if Johnny can’t read by the time he’s ready to get married
let’s find out why.
Let’s look at the disribution of public largesse and if,
far from alleviating human misery, it is producing the sloth
and irresponsibility that intensifies it, let’s get it fixed.
Let’s quit being bulldozed and bedazzled by self-appointed
longhairs. Let’s have the guts to say that a book is dirt if that’s
what we think of it, or a painting may well be a daub if you
can’t figure out which way to hang it. And if some beatnik
welds together a collection of rusty cogwheels and old corset
stays and claims it’s a greater sculpture than Michelangelo’s
“David” let’s have the courage to say that it looks like junk
and probably is.
Let's blow the whistle on
plays that would bring blushes
to an American Legion stag
party. Let’s not be awed by
movie characters with barn
yard morals even if some of
them have been photographed
climbing aboard the President
ial yacht. Let us pay more at
tention in our news columns to
the decent people everywhere
who are trying to do some
thing for the good of others.
In short gentlemen, let’s cov
er up the cesspool and start
planting some flowers.
Well, that’s the jeremaid. I
never thought I’d deliver one
of these. I never dreamed I’d
go around sounding like an ad
vance man for the Watch-and
Ward-Society. I used to con
sider myself quite a liberal
young man. I still think that
on some people bikinis look
fine.
But I am fed up to here with
the educationists and pseudo
social scientists who have un
derrated our potential as a
people. I am fed up to here
with the medicine men who
try to pass off pretense for art
and prurience for literature. I
am tired of seeing America de
based and low-rated in the
eyes of foreigners. And I am
genuinely disturbed that to
idealistic youth in many coun
tries the fraud of Communism
appears synonymous with mor
ality, while we, the chief re
pository of freedom, are re
garded as being in the last
stages of decay.
We can learn a lesson from
history. Twice before our Brit
ish cousins appeared heading
into a collapse of principle, and
twice they drew themselves
back. The British court reach
ed an advanced stage of cor
ruption under the Stuarts. But
the people rebelled. And in the
wild days of George IV and
William IV it looked as though
Britain were rotting out again.
But the people banged through
the reform laws, and under
Victoria went on to the peak
of their power.
In this hour of fear, confus
ion and self-doubt let this be
the story of America. Unless I
misread the signs a great num
ber of our people are ready.
Let there be a fresh breeze,
a breeze of new honesty, new
idealism, new integrity.
And there, gentlemen, is
where you come in. You have
typewriters, presses and a huge
audience.
How about raising hell?
MEA Starts Plans
For Mollie Pearson
Scholarship Fund
Establishing one or more
scholarships among the schools
in the MEA service area is un
der investigation by the board
of directors of Matanuska
Valley Electric Assn.
C. Ivan Branton, secretary
treasurer, and Mason LaZelle,
manager, were appointed as a
committee to confer with edu
cation officials and make a re
commendation for the board to
consider.
Two general approaches
were discussed at the MEA
board meeting Monday: either
setting up one scholarship for
a student from one of the
schools in the area, or estab
lishing a smaller scholarship
for each one of the high
schools serving the MEA area.
Mrs. Ruth “Mollie” Pearson
suggested the scholarship con
cept before her departure after
20 years of service to the co
operative. In view of this fact
the board will use her name in
designating the scholarship.
PLENTY OF LOOT!
If President Kennedy’s entire
legislative program—including
aid to education, medical care
for the aged, public welfare and
the rest—were approved in toto
by Congress, what would the
costs be? U. S. News & World
Report has totaled up the tab
and finds that increases would
come to $2,538,000,000 in the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1963
and $9,076,000,000 for the fiscal
year ending in 1965.