Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR THE QUIET CAMPUS As recently as two years ago the American college student displayed an interest in politics such as had not been seen since the early 1930s. A mass hysteria seemed...
...But the major failing of Altbach's article is not that he has spun new clothes for the Emperor, but that he has done so with a disfiguring bias...
...Few of the authors of these pieces—and Philip Altbach's "The Quiet Campus" appears to conform to the rule— ever do any systematic surveying of campus attitudes and activity...
...John P. McCarthy Associate Editor New Individualist Review Philip Altbach replies: 1. Paula Rothenberg has set up a straw man...
...A mass hysteria seemed to be sweeping across college campuses, resulting in the establishment of an array of student organizations which reflected an uncritical willingness to plead the case for almost any cause...
...In Holmes' phrase, he has built on the "inarticulate major premise" that only the alienated engage in student politics...
...Actually, not only is there a YAF chapter on the Harvard campus but a chapter of the Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (another conservative group) as well...
...One of the main points of "The Quiet Campus" was to indicate that the student movement is losing its dynamism precisely because young people refuse to stick their necks out...
...If in fact it is such activity that the author equates with student political participation, let us hope that his predictions for its bleak future are correct...
...During the late 1950s the student movement roused itself from inactivity and, primarily because of the school integration crisis, assumed a long-neglected responsibility for the world which it was on the brink of inheriting...
...There is a great deal of difference between a large "paper" organization and meaningful campus activity and sustained programming...
...As the above facts demonstrate, the conservative student movement has not met with a "devastating collapse...
...The campus is quiet because everyone is at work...
...To speak of the group I know better, many Young Democrats realize that much of the President's legislative program remains to be enacted...
...On the other hand, perhaps students who take a year out from school and work in the civil rights or peace movements for a pittance are being more "responsible" than those who adhere to the academic grind and who are annually spewed forth by American universities to take their comfortable places in suburbia...
...There are more than three million college students in this country, of whom the great majority are politically inert...
...Such students are, unfortunately, as plentiful today as they were in '59 or '60, but the kind of leadership they offer was better suited to the early phases of the student movement...
...4. My apologies to John McCarthy...
...This is not true, though from my experience most of them are...
...But they realize, too, that the best way to remedy this situation is to work at electing more liberal Democrats to Congress...
...Indeed, perhaps one of the reasons for the ineffectuality of many American intellectuals is that, though their words fill many volumes, they have been unwilling to act...
...The Young Americans for Freedom has not, as Altbach would have everyone believe, died out...
...The new character of the student movement calls for a new kind of leadership...
...New York City Richard A. Derham Since his time and efforts are so taken up with the frustrating task of trying to save the declining leftist student movements, Philip Altbach's inaccuracy in reporting right-wing student activities is understandable...
...Conversely, conservative-dominated Young Republican The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...It makes a very bad image and always manages to get on the front page...
...Frank also maintains that I have ignored the non-activist elements of the student movement...
...Emphatically, these "radicals" are not being replaced by respectable elements brimming with responsible solutions to problems within the realm of the political system...
...The new leaders are quiet leaders, just as the movement is a quiet movement...
...Alternatively, he may have neglected to mention them because, like many other student radicals, he considers the Young Democrats and the Young Republicans mere partyhacks-in-training, irreparably compromised by their sell-out to the adult world...
...In 1962, for example, the Harvard Young Democrats formally endorsed Edward McCormack for the Massachusetts Senatorial nomination over Ted Kennedy, and a subsequent effort to have the National Federation of College Young Democrats forbid such actions was defeated...
...Such groups as the Northern Student Movement (working quietly for civil rights), the peace research groups, and others are mentioned...
...If I had to choose between an over-enthusiastic social conscience and an articulate, responsible donothing, I should choose the former...
...and they do not look upon political activity as an excuse for avoiding academic obligations...
...Advance, a magazine established by a group of Harvard Young Republicans—and apparently one of the few student publications still going strong—regularly belabors the conservative wing of the GOP...
...He tells us that "it is no longer easy to find the sort of student who will neglect his studies for weeks at a time in order to devote himself to planning a major demonstration...
...As was to be expected many of its more radical, and thus attentiongetting, ideas and goals fell by the wayside...
...For the fact of the matter is, a new maturity and reasonableness characterize today's student movement and, hopefully, these qualities will be reflected in its achievements...
...Of course, there are notable exceptions to this perhaps over-generous generalization...
...I have seen these very same people quit in disgust when a convention was stacked or a ballot rigged...
...Perhaps Altbach omits these groups because the fact that more than 10,000 students engage in partisan political activity contradicts his assertion that "the general feeling among students is one of isolation, of a sense that they have no real base in the adult community...
...In his article, Altbach points to a lack of leadership as "perhaps the most pressing problem for the student movement...
...His readers would never know that two of the largest and most active organizations on American campuses are the Young Democrats and Young Republicans...
...Whereas noise and buckshot criticism are the means by which a newly rejuvenated group may rally people to its cause, the opportunity for being constructive lies in another direction...
...Certainly responsibility (i.e., "respectability") has its place...
...What the movement sought was not a recognition of itself as a constructive force within the framework of society, which cannot be achieved within a short span of years, but rather simply an immediate recognition of its presence as a political entity...
...She seems to indicate that there is a dichotomy between active participation in political and social action and serious thought and consideration of the "issues...
...But it would appear that what Altbach is confusing with the decline of the student movement is actually the disappearance of raucous mass demonstrations, bordering on riots, which marked the college scene two years ago...
...He mentions that there is no longer a YAF group at Harvard...
...Student "drop-outs" are a problem to college deans as well as to parents, and who wants to be non-violently attacked by a crowd of bearded fanatics...
...The fact is, however, that while few members of these two organizations could be said to be alienated, many are greatly dissatisfied with the present quality of American politics...
...My check is in the mail and I will look forward to being enlightened at least four times during the coming year by the New Individualist Review...
...Since Altbach himself is still in school, he can obtain a student subscription by sending $1 to our office at the University of Chicago (or, if he chooses, a regular $2 subscription...
...They are being replaced by a void...
...And so the student movement stamped its feet, waved placards in the air, and raised its voice, generally paying less attention to what it was saying than to how loudly it was saying it...
...3. My facts about the Young Americans for Freedom were collected from the usually reliable Collegiate Press Service, though it is possible that a YAF group still exists at Harvard...
...Far from providing a basis for pessimistic predictions concerning the future of the student movement, those very factors cited by Altbach to prove apathy and withdrawal are suggestive of a new kind of purposefulness and concern...
...Altbach is fully entitled to believe in the efficacy of effervescence, and to prefer the picket lines to the precincts, But as the author of a purportedly serious survey of student politics, he has no right to redefine "political activity" to conform to his preferences...
...Having once made its presence felt, there was time to re-evaluate the causes and doctrines which the movement had embraced upon its emergence...
...However, the poorly financed, but "intellectually respectable" quarterly, the New Individualist Review, is quite alive and continues to appear regularly, both by subscription and at the more than 40 universities here and abroad where it is sold on newsstands...
...Jackson Heights, N.Y...
...There the past year has seen the phenomenal growth of the New Conservative, a student newspaper which is now serving other campuses in Colorado...
...He assumes that I think that all Young Democrats and Young Republicans are "hacks...
...Today the boisterousness has given way to a mature recognition and reappraisal of political and social responsibilities...
...Meaningful political action and thought will take place when students (and others as well) are able to analyze the roots of social problems and act thoughtfully on them—to be "radicals" in the traditional sense of the word...
...clubs in the Northeast often are quite vocally at odds with their moderate party leaders...
...It is this aspect of the student movement which has declined, not the movement itself...
...Incidentally, careful readers will note that I have not attempted to whitewash the "leftist" movements, but attempted to present a picture of what seems to be an atrophy which has not limited itself to one end of the political spectrum...
...New York City Paula Rothenberg Like those "crime-waves" created by circulation-starved newspaper editors, articles on great upswings or disastrous downturns in student political activity generally have little basis in fact...
...This is not true...
...Cambridge, Mass...
...It is the apparent waning of this tide that Philip Altbach bemoans in his article, "The Quiet Campus" (NL, August 5...
...I know for a fact that the University of Chicago boasts several conservative student groups on paper, though none has offered speakers, discussions, meetings, nor manifested any signs of life...
...The cumulative entity that derived from all these groups and their activities came to be referred to as the student movement...
...Nevertheless, YAF continues to grow, and is currently gaining new members at the rate of approximately 1,000 a month...
...As for intra-party matters, student Democrats have been actively aligned with reform forces in New York City, and in Massachusetts...
...Just how large the active minority is, and whether it has in fact fluctuated wildly over the past few years, are questions that I have yet to see answered adequately...
...Moreover, they are rarely captives of their senior parties...
...There was a rejection of radicalism in favor of a return to the fold, where there is perhaps less opportunity for sensationalism, but where more opportunities exist for constructive achievements...
...I have not redefined "political activity," though I find it difficult to include groups which are essentially aimed at advancing the careers of their own members as legitimate political action groups...
...True, YAF chapters do not exist on "most" campuses, but can any organization today claim to be represented at a large percentage of the more than 2,000 colleges and universities in the United States...
...I don't know the situation at the University of New Mexico, which Altbach maintains no longer has a YAF chapter, but the experience of campus conservatives at the University of Colorado may be informative...
...Barney Frank Whatever may be the validity of Philip Altbach's generalizations concerning the decline of liberal student organizations, when he discusses conservative groups his facts are simply wrong...
...One of the points that I tried to make in my article is that both are vitally necessary if meaningful political activity is to take place on any level...
...legislative candidates backed by the reformist Democrats have drawn heavy student support...
...I have met numbers of serious young people sincerely interested in social change who felt that a group like the Student Peace Union was too "far out" and who, consequently, worked in the Young Democratic movement...
...2. Barney Frank does me an injustice...
Vol. 46 • September 1963 • No. 18
