Letter from a Whig
Slemp, C. Bascom
life), Frank's final public view is not entirely adequate as a guide to under-standing this matter. But as to that issue, and others, this is not the place to argue his perceptions with him. Yet...
...His legacy is his car-dinal insight, and his mode of analyzing events in light of that crucial tension which he perceived in fundamental American political and philosophic thought...
...the Cultural Gatherings which were to degenerate into radical chic parties by the end of the decade...
...Send no money --the magazines you choose will bill you...
...Various writers had seen signs which indicated that the President was a Tory Socialist at heart, while others had assured us that, in truth, Mr...
...Ever since the New Deal, and particularly with the Great Society programs, the prevalent philosophy had been (in the words of John Kenneth Galbraith) that "all feder- al spending was automatically good," irrespective of any other considerations...
...But as one of Phillips' conservative cohorts wry- ly observed to me, "'the meeting of con- servative minds here at OEO is not to be confused with the YAF reunion," which apparently is not to be held until later in the year...
...not what your country can do for you...
...Al-though the Nixon Court has also shown indications that it has its own ideas on what it will take to save the country...
...One of the most effective was the linking of JFK with "images of excellence": the dinners with artists, Nobel laureates, and the like...
...Synonymous with the war on poverty_, OEO has not had a successful history...
...In a leaked Adminis- tration memorandum, which received wide circulation here on Capitol Hill, the strategy for the successful conclusion to the dismantlement of OEO was laid out...
...Only in America could a court declare jurisdiction over the ethical question of abortion and get away with it...
...Evidence abounds: John F. Kennedy was a masterful politician, politician, politician...
...He must he prepared to ex- ercise the fullest powers of his office --all that are specified and some that are not...
...Kennedy knew the value of image-making and quoted Burke to the effect that "...the whole world marks our demeanor...
...Fairlie effectively contrasts this with Eisenhower's prescription for meeting the hostile ideology of commu-nism: "To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crises, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint, the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle...
...JFK the politician has been obscured by JFK the martyr...
...3 cial betterment bubbly the nation woke up with a hangover...
...Campaigning in the Midwest in 1960, he wasn't above a little corn: "The American cow is the 'foster mother' to the human race and a great asset to the nation...
...Having out-spent his rivals to capture the Democratic can- didacy for president in 1960, Kennedy ignored the half-dozen men he had hinted he would choose as vice-president to pick a running mate on pure political expe- diency...
...This explains why the controversy has not taken on The Kennedy Promise The Politics of Expectations by Henry Fairlie Doubleday $7.95 Is nothing sacred...
...hsh" and Western riding, the petts Prmts Government Im care and training ot all breeds pact Statements...
...His "wrecking crew" and "gaulleiters," as they are invariably called, are equally pleased with their assignment...
...Needless to say, as the Administration has pointed out, the war on poverty has not been eliminated...
...Fairlie cites Kennedy's pre-presidency belief in a strong leader as expressed in a speech in January, 1960 before the National Press Club: the chief executive "must be the Chief Executive in every sense of the word...
...treating serious issues with m-telhgenoe and absurd issues with condign r~dlcule...
...The one goes like this: Well, Frank Meyer wasn't really up on everything, and so, though he was a fine man and all that, he just isn't relevant to us now...
...Through special revenue sharing programs, the states and local communities will have opportunity to determine the efficiency of theh" particular programs and the dis- cretion to continue them in a way better The Alternative April 1973 Oceans Shows what top professfonals tA "Periodical Book" pubhshed are thinking and doing to ptan 6 times a year Oceans devotes and design landscape for human itselt seriously--and readably--use and enloyment Handsome to the science, challenge and graphics adventure ot the sea 1 year (4 issues) $8.50 1 year (6 issues) $12 Since 1954 the leading dlustra-ted air historical publication with articles, book reviews, museum news tor all periods and areas 1 year (4 issues) $8.00 Not since H L. Mencken's...
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...From the "philosopher-king" president down to the The Alternative April 1973...
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...Although the first session of the 93rd Congress began on January 3, 1973, and the dis- mantlement of OEO is not to be com-pleted until June 30th of this year (six months), it is considered.,douhthtl by congressional observers that the languor- ous mechanisms of Congress can get in gear in time to meet this challenge...
...Neither image was particularly reassuring for the American liberal, and neither image was very pleasing to the American conservative...
...He was a splendid teacher, not just because of what he taught, but because of his attitude toward learning...
...We must always be on guard against the damage that retrospectives can do The Washington Scene (WASHINGTON)--For the sagacious pundit and judicious observer of the Washington scene, 1973 already heralds the truth of that widely sung chorus line-Only in America...
...As Fairlie and others have noted, those Keunedy-idolaters who credit the Kenne- dys with being the dominant figures of the 1960s shouldn't absolve them from the nastiness of the decade...
...But OEO is the sacred shibboleth and svmbol of the Great Society, and congressional oppositmn to its dismantlement is, there- fore, strong...
...But this does not make the present debate any easier, nor its outcome any more certain...
...Clinch (The Kennedy Neurosis), none of them coming from the long-critical Right...
...Isn't there a special interest magazine here that specially interests you...
...The icon-smashers include British liberal Henry Fairlie as well as a gentleman named Halberstam (in the ironically-titled The Best and the Brightest and a certain Ms...
...The first signs of how Nixon envisions his next four years came when the Ad- ministration introduced its Federal Bud- get for Fiscal Year 1974...
...Part of his paper-thin margin over Richard M. Nixon (a politician of the p'~riod) was due to the "missile gap" JFK discovered, which JFK's Secretary of Defense debunked not too lon~ after the campaign...
...Presi-dent Kennedy had long shared this view of the presidency...
...Kristol is 'undoubtedly correct in his summation of the seventies...
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...OEO's responsibili- ties are being shifted to other govern-ment agencies, with the exception of the Community Action Agencies...
...I year (12 issues) $5 T..~/ ; Change is the magazine of high-er learning in Amer:ca It con-tains commentar)~ and criticism tocusmg on hlgher educatlon in tlux 1year (10 issues) $10.0E SPECIAL INTEREST MAGAZINES OF SPECIAL INTEREST TO YOU I Limnos is the hlghly influential, el'he new nabonal horse maga often quoted journal ot environ-zme covermng all phases of mental protection Well lllustra-horsemanshlp Featuring Eng ted, articles by mternahonal ex...
...Phil- lips, to the chagrin of his congressional opponents, has made it clear that he en- joys this task and that he intends to be the last Director of OEO and not neces- sarily the best...
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...You tried to solve social problems like a drunken hardware wholesaler trying to snag girls in a Paris nightclub...
...Now's your chance...
...But so far from their being repealed, they are on their way to being institutionalized--to being rendered conventional, un-subversive, in the end uninteresting (though not un-influential...
...Not surprisingly, they're called "special interest" maga-zines...
...The Nixon Administration's memoran-dum serves to illustrate the dilemma with which Congress is faced...
...Historical revision- ists are dumping on Camelot and the Kennedy Clan...
...We were in danger, but a good bit of that danger may have been due to the man who promised "we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hard- ship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty...
...These innova- tions may or may not have been alto-gether desirable...
...Look over the selections carefully...
...But little more has been forthcoming...
...Every right-living nation ought to go on that kind of drtmk every so often, and even if you went about it the wrong way, you got us think- ing about what we should be doing...
...The words constitutional crisis" are already synonymous with the ninety-third Congress and rumor here in Washington has it that Ted Kennedy's government in exile stands ready and waiting to offer its leadership to save the country...
...One may even think that, on balance, they have been alto-gether undesirable...
...The Washington press has given wide publicity to Phillips, a modern day Cato (as he cheerfully calls himself), bent on the destruction of Carthage...
...his legacy is not the every par- ticular in his corpus of writings...
...If the President is successful with his programs it might not only be the first step towards returning this country to the path of fiscal responsibility, but it might also eventually signal the reversal of the Great Society philosophy...
...And only in America could a presiden-tial candidate win with the landslide pro- portions of Richard Nixon, without ena-bling his party to capture a majority in either the House or the Senate of the United States Congress...
...Congressional reaction, in the form Book R iew of the customary hot air, has be~l, vocif- erous if nothing else...
...Includmg road tests, ridmg hits, and how-to arbcles...
...It is good for a chuck- le, by the way, to watch the current agonizing of the liberal senators who have only discovered the problem of a strong president when faced with one not doing what they want...
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...Thus it would seem, (if the President can keep his mind on domestic matters for a sustained period, and unforeseen international problems notwithstanding...
...There were other forms of appeal for support of the President, to be sure...
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...today...
...Yet he told the readers of Missiles and Rockets magazine that "Certainly, na-tional scientific goals will be our first objective...
...Each day we draw nearer to the hour of maximum danger, as weapons spread and hostile forces grow stronger," President Kennedy told us in his State of the Union speech in 1961...
...Yet if we are to derive any- thing of continuing value out of Frank Meyer's thought other than the crucial central perception, we must learn to ap- ply his mode of analysis to contemporary problems, not humbly and meekly to accept his every opinion as Writ...
...You may subscribe to any one --or ones --that interest you, under the rates specified, and under this guarantee: if you're not entirely satisfied, each publisher guarantees that you may cancel at any time and receive an immediate and unquestioned refund covering the balance of your subscription...
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...There is nothing startling about this notion, nor "anything specifically limited to Frank's legacy as opposed to that of any other significant thinker...
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...Nixon was a Hobbesian lib-eral...
...Through the peculiarities of the Amer- ican political process, the demarcation for the battle between the Republican President and the Democrat-controlled Congress has been drawn...
...Fairlie's thesis is that the Kennedys were basi-cally politicians who clothed their pursuit of power in lofty rhetoric, promised more than they could deliver, and raised ex-pectations to sueh a pitch that when they were not satisfied by the political sys-tem, the system came under bitter attack...
...Ask what you can do for your country...
...It is as easy to bury Frank's thoughts by lav- ishly adoring them in toto as by dismis- sing them as "irrelevant" to the seven-ties and beyond...
...The dismantlement of the Office of Economic Opportunity, as part of the Nixon Administration's government reor- ganization plan, has emerged as the fo- cal point for the debate between Con-gress and the Executive...
...Instead, they try to please people with special interests...
...How-ever, as Irving Kristol in a recent col-umn observed: "The '70s, as I sense their drift, will be years of assimilation and adaptatiqn, of 'cooptation.' Big gov- ernment is not going to go away, any more than pornography or abortions or women's lib will go away...
...Journalists and academicians have long speculated over what a second Nix- on term would entail...
...Rather like a blank check drawn on the lives of the Amer- ican people...
...Robert Frost at the inaugura- tion...
...Where is Ted Sorensen when we need him most...
...One that you've been meaning to subscribe to...
...The other senti- ment, voiced by fewer people, of course, because fewer bothered to invest the time and energy in contemplating his thoughts in the first place, content merely to know that he was a Great Person, is this: Frank Meyer was the greatest mind conservatism in America has produced, and he was always cor-rect, so we had best take to heart every- thing he ever said, and believe it...
...It is, however, unlikely that these next four years will produce, any definitive interpretation of the Nixon philosophy, instead, it seems more likely that the President will at-tempt to meet the challenges of his time to secure the base for that so very elu- sive 'emerging political majority...
...Howard Phillips, a former Republican congressional candidate from Massachu- setts who has long been associated with the arch-conservative Young Americans for Freedom, has been appointed to car- ry out the dismantlement of OEO...
...glory days at the American Mercury has a iournal combined radlery with sermusness to discuss contemporary ~ssues...
...That completely misunderstood Washing- ton commentator, Nicholas von Hoffman, also expressed the character of Great Society philosophy m nls trtbute to for- mer President Johnson: " You (Johnson) were so impulsive...
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...Which is true, and a far cry from the parodied, jejune Meyerphilia mentioned just above...
...Congressional critics of the Administra- tion, however, fear that the dismantle- ment of OEO.could establish a dangerous precedent...
...OEO is to be dismembered by the end of Fiscal Year 1973 (June 30, 19"/3) before congressional opposition to gath- er and develop a legislative counterstrat- egy" can be accomplished...
...Although the President's political insensitivity to those hallowed halls of wisdom, marble, vir-tue, and hot air would make executive- legislative relations trying under even the best of circumstances, this particular political breakdown does little to help the problem...
...M. Stanton Evans, a first-rate conservative mind himself, said of Frank that "his libertarian conservative writings (will rank) among the principal achievements, not only of modern conservatism, but of political thought in general...
...You drank so much of the so-to the thoughts of seminal minds...
...The result will be an Amer- ica quite different--but not altogether different--from the America we have known...
...As Fairlie points out, the period of the fifties and sixties was one in which the intellectual elite was enthralled with the concept of the strong chief executive, a head of state who could wield the power of the federal government to do "good things" here and abroad...
...Both "charisma" and "options" seem destined for history's trash bin...
...Several of the $6.75 best are presented here...
...Eisenhower promised less, yet would not have re-neged on what he promised...One cannot imagine Ike refusing air cover at the Bay of Pigs because it would embarrass us at the U.N...
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...In office, he urged us all to sacrifice for the country he led, "Ask the ideological ovcrtones one might ex-pect, and many conservatives have indi- cated their opposition to the President's policies...
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...motocross, and the action of rld-mg in the rough...
...Campaigning throughout the nation, he named the "Number One" problem in America to be, in various places: the depressed areas, the decline in farm income, and unemployment...
...Although it is the belief of many that the distinction of the for- mer is a prerequisite for the latter...
...that the stage is set for a debate on what the future direction of this country should be...
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...We learn from Frank whenever we con-template the problems he considered if we are cognizant of his central be- liefs in those matters, are willing to make some of the effot'ts he made to grapple with them, and are determined to allow him to live in us not as captain but as coach...
...Furthermore, since an increasing tax Imrden, wild spending, and runaway inflation were not produc-ing the utopian results everyone expec- ted, popular resentment has followed in the form of a fiscal and social hangover...
...But two tendencies are already at work now, just one year after his death of can- cer at age sixty-two, in April 1972...
...But this spend-now-pay-later" philosophy has resulted in an almost uncontrollable federal budget, with mounting deficits and no end it, sight...
...That's the creeping mindlessness one hears echoed by so many, especially L_____ Letter from a Whig HI I IlL mmllll younger people, who are off hunting another adoration-worthy guru (having foolishly adopted that least guruesque gentleman, Frank S. Meyer, as their guru in the first place...
...What-ever one's political or ideological or phi- losophical "thing," there is enormous worth in Frank Meyer's contribution to the world of ideas, available for the taking...
...If the appeal to patriotism wasn't enough, there were other appeals, such as to the desire to survive thermo-nuclear war...
...Its failure was characterized by overcentralization, and the top-heavy nature of the structure reflected a "'support-the-rich-build-a-bur-eaucracy" approach to the problem of poverty...
...And there were many instances in which 75 percent of expenditures for particular programs were administrative in nature...
...Funds which should have bene- fited the poor were used to pay the salar- ies of the War on Poverty Generals...
Vol. 6 • April 1973 • No. 7
