Letter from a Whig
Will, George F.
headed legislation. The challenge remains to forfend these mortal diseases without violating the spirit and the form of popular government." HIS other essays, especially those on the city,...
...Occasionally a big wave will come along and we get wet, all wet...
...All this talk does is boggle the mind and confuse us all...
...I guess that is a family trait...
...This interview was conducted by Professor Constable, a leading student of constitutional law...
...Fourth, Vice Presidents are protected by the Secret Service...
...It seems to me that the causes for such agony and abomination are a matter of their singular perceptions...
...Let us assume, perhaps rashly, that the Democratic Party does not want to hitch its wagon to a Goldwater...
...Again and again Kristol returns to the theme that denatured authority is the cause of alienation, anomie, and the dispirited withdrawal of the desengages: "what exists is vulnerable for no ther reason then that it exists and because the citizenry no longer feels any particular responsibility for its existence, any instinctive obligation to sustain or even reform it...
...After all, you were such an active force in rewriting the constitution during your term on the high bench...
...HH + EMK = ? B ECAUSE WE may not be able to do so in the future, let us forget George McGovern for a moment...
...A lot of Democrats are hooked on a narcotic of their own devi~ing - - Camelotitis...
...Clearly there is a kind of political blackmail available to a man rough enough to use it...
...Make no mistake about it...
...Nevertheless life for a great many Americans is - - if we hear them correctly - - unbearable...
...HIS other essays, especially those on the city, censorship, the university, and _political utopianism, are of proximate value not only for their intelligent treatment of various national disaster zones, but for the nexus Kristol draws between these vexing temporary dilemmas and the enduring diseases of democracy...
...I have to depend upon my little grandson Bobby who has just turned fourteen to help me...
...Answer: Well, yes and no...
...Indeed the book offers fuel for every American who thinks seriously about the mess we are in...
...Third, the Vice Presidency would not be onerous...
...It stimulates the intellect...
...We were all planning to take a trip to Athens and ramble among the ruins of the Parthenon in order to gain some flavor of the spirit that animated those who can justly be called the real founders of democracy...
...conventional wisdom says that Kennedy would not take the second spot if asked...
...What would you do if you were still Chief Justice...
...I endorse this book more eagerly than any book that has been published since The Alternative came off the restroom walls...
...If he did r e f u s e ' a n d the ticket lost, the Party would blame Kennedy for four extra years in the wilderness...
...persons who were not eligible to vote in 1968, when Nixon won by half a million votes out of 73 million votes cast...
...Irving Kristol is learned, wise, and absolutely his own man...
...The hour has rushed upon us when liberals and conservatives must cooperate to heal the horrid wounds that have been slashed into our society...
...Three (Bryan, Dewey and Stevenson) lost again...
...They are very active...
...It involves fleecing the party faithful at fund raising events...
...Also the coloring books for children today are far more intricate and fascinating...
...He is worth arguing with...
...At no time did you spare any efforts in using your powers as Chief Justice to drag the American people, however reluctant they may have been, to a confrontation of problems facing all of us in these troubled times...
...Suppose Humphrey, without asking Kennedy in private, publicly invited Kennedy to join the ticket...
...There will be 25 million "new voters...
...They are relevant without being pop...
...Despite some very bold decisions on the part of the lower courts, the judiciary has not shown any imagination in handling this very profound is~ue of constitutional law...
...This fourth man is Richard Nixon...
...Then, there are always the grandchildren...
...They are more interested in glamor than government and, anyway, they are convinced that you cannot capture the latter without the former...
...Professor Constable shortly will assume new duties as Dean of the Hayyard Law School...
...R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr...
...Now, Justice Warrant, don't you regret your retirement...
...At the present time we are writing a new and modem constitution that will best serve the national interests...
...All of this convinces me that the youth today are more intelligent and sophisticated than at any other period in our history -- or, indeed, in the history of the whole world...
...Lets think about Hubert Humphrey...
...Oh, if only we could have world peace...
...Effortlessly soaring above the screeches, the squeaks, and the infantile prattle of the Pecksniffs who pant and perspire over The New York Review o[ Books, Kristol apprehends many of the same problems that impressed those who wrote the Constitution...
...That is why Humphrey would offer the spot to Kennedy...
...In addition to all of this, as you probably know, I work on a part time basis for the Funda Republica Americanus, an organization not to be confused with the Republican Party...
...In what ways do you regret having retired from the Court...
...Your decisions, however, have been accepted by all those who seek a new constitutional order in the United States, an order which will fulfill the loftiest vision of our forebears...
...We used to laugh when this happened...
...This has spoiled some of our fun...
...Is Humphrey rough enough...
...Answer: The major issue where I have substantial doubts involves the whole issue of busing...
...An Exclusive Intervww A Former Chief Justice Speaks out on Busing George Carey a6 A FORMER CHIEF JUSTICE / ' X SpeaKs Out On Busing~ An Exclusive Intervmw...
...But he is not glamorous and it would take the close proximity of Kennedy to give him luster...
...He would be making what looks like a sacrifice: be would risk becoming Vice President, a job slightly less attractive than managing the Philadelphia Phiilies...
...Democrats think Humphrey would be an anti-Pied Piper, a Republican insurance policy against the youth vote...
...Humphrey is a very likeable gentleman...
...According to Kristol, America's failure has been its inability to nourish the spirit...
...The Russian scholars who are visitors at the institute have given us some keen insights into our domestic and international difficulties...
...It is not certain that new voters will vote in large numbers and predomiThe Alternative June--September 1972 9 nantly Democratic...
...We meet periodically to discuss various ways of improving America...
...Don't you want to get back into the swing of things...
...Upon receiving his degree from Hayyard Law, he was appointed to the faculty where he has served with distinction for eighteen months...
...For the nation's alienated, and adrift, America has become morally unpersuasive, and in his most suggestive essay, "When Virtue Loses All Her Loveliness," Kristol traces the roots of this sour perception back to modern capitalism itself...
...It drifts in search of authority, leadership, and a renewal of principle, both in the way men govern their society and in the way men govern themselves...
...America's crisis is the fading of legitinmcy in all those institutions that moderate human orneriness and conflict...
...In addition, this year there will be senate elections in 33 states...
...Often they are profound...
...He received his undergraduate degree from Hayyard, as well as his legal training...
...I never miss it...
...But there are various ways of "asking" things, and some ways are quite coercive...
...The Democrats could nominate Humphrey if they knew where he could get the winning margin of votes...
...Besides, Humphrey almost won in 1968, in spite of the fact that his campaign was underfinanced.and his badly divided party had just given the country the worst eight consecutive years of government since 18.52-60...
...Without Kennedy, Humphrey would remind people of the famous ,aging cow in Robert Louis Stevenson's poem: "blown by all the winds that pass, and wet with all the showers...
...Reprinted with permission...
...Of course, your decisions have created turmoil within our nation...
...No -- the I0 The Alternative June--September 1972...
...There are four reasons why Kennedy might take it...
...In peering through the flatulent rhetoric of our contemporary mountebanks, Kristol grapples with the underlying principles controlling democratic government...
...He was named the most popular instructor at Hayyard U. in a recent poll conducted by Elbridge Davis...
...How refreshing...
...He was treated very roughly by several Kennedys ha some 1960 primaries, and especially in West Virginia, where they accused him of a cowardly war record...
...Nothing could be more understandable than that Kennedy would want that...
...Question: Justice Warrant, let me say, by way of introduction, that you have done so much for the country...
...Finally in the American system freedom and equality are in unsurpassed equipoise...
...Views and World Sport (January 31, 1972...
...In what areas do you find yourself in disagreement with the recent Court decisions...
...We just love our pier...
...We are striving with some success to bridge the gap between nations...
...It is a fine statement even if not all of its particulars can be agreed upon...
...Too many of our socalled scholars get caught up in the business of de facto versus de jure segregation...
...It is all form and no substance...
...Since the oil dumping in the ocean and the underground nuclear tests, we have assiduously avoided complete immersion...
...From U.S...
...My wife and I are leading a very active life...
...That America is more congenial toward dissent than any other society on the globe is manifest...
...No one cared a fig about Muskie, nor Muskie about anyone, until Humphrey raised him to prominence at Chicago in 1968...
...Humphrey has been doing political favors for twenty-five years...
...For reasons still enveloped in mystery, democratic America has actually managed rather well...
...Little Susan who is only nine years old can now read the Declaration of Independence in its entirety...
...Admittedly the essays are often difficult, yet they unerringly spot, the vectors of our malaise...
...Lesser men might have retreated from the real world and closed themselves off from such invigorating experiences...
...We are, of course, nonpartisan...
...Question: I can see very well, Justice Warrant, that you are leading the life of the genuine intellectual -- something you have always done...
...Let me digress for a moment or two...
...Indeed such a suggestion strikes me as audacious and enlightened...
...All this has not left Humphrey a soft man...
...So, too, is it obvious that poverty is more comfortable here than anywhere else...
...My hunch, for whatever it is worth, is that Sesame Street is in large part responsible for this...
...His serene awareness deserves emulation...
...As the book includes only eight of the many essays Kristol has written over the past five years, I take it that these essays traverse contemporary issues the author regards as most important...
...Kristol is that unique kind of thinker around whom can rally liberals and conservatives who feel, as I personally feel, that ideological spitting matches should be cast overboard during times, such as our own, when the very existence of our democracy is in question...
...This year the obvious place to look for those votes is among "the kids...
...If Humphrey is nominated, they probably will not...
...He does not seem much interested in senate business and his own party colleagues deposed him from the_ Whip job in favor of Senator Robert Byrd, whose personal attractiveness can be gauged by the fact that he is known as the Uriah Heep of the senate...
...I really enjoy the program...
...Second, by accepting the nomination Kennedy could prove that he is a team player...
...The reasons why rlumphrey's support is substantial but as yet insufficient are obvious...
...His book is instructive, not only for what it says about, for instance, censorship, but for what it says about how men govern themselves in the democratic regime...
...America has slipped its morrings...
...The fourth won, but only after an eight-year wait, and even in winning he received three and a half million fewer votes than he received in his first run...
...Muskie is not...
...I have no doubt but that they are important issues, and for that reason alone they should appear on every college reading list concerned with modern American society...
...There are so many different patterns and colors...
...During times of profound social division, I do not sense anything pedestrian or low about urging a deeply divided people to find something noble to melt into...
...it was so much fun...
...Perhaps it is not too late to revive that crucial, if unsung, element of democratic society that is commonality...
...But there comes a point when senti ment collides with historical facts...
...We know, whether certain elements of the White, Black, Indian, ChineseAmerican or Japanese-American citizenry like it or not, that the Constitution simply demands integration of public schools...
...But if Humphrey has Kennedy in tow, that is another matter...
...Kennedy's personal charm would make this easy...
...First, if the ticket won he would escape from the senate...
...In 31 of these the number of new voters is larger than the margin by which the incumbent won in his last election...
...it also involves chatting with potentates and cutting ribbons at new dams in new countries...
...If Hubert Humphrey could guarantee that Edward Kennedy would accept the Vice Presidental nomination, many Democratic professionals would follow their hearts and give Humphrey another shot at the White House...
...Serious Democrats know that only four men have been renominated after running unsuccessfully for president...
...Humphrey is an enduring, engaging, familiar, friendly figure...
...What great men they must have been...
...But, unfortunately, since the fascist Greek colonels have taken control we have had to postpone our trip until there is a restoration of true democracy...
...We see them about once a month...
...He has coveted the White House for fifteen years...
...You, sir, stand as an example for so many...
...Every morning we stroll down to the pier together -you see it's only 100 yards from our patio -- and we dip our toes into the water...
...Could Kennedy refuse...
...Ultimately, Kristol's concerns are the same as Madison's...
Vol. 5 • June 1972 • No. 9
