OUR CULTURAL CRISIS

...But this is only one side of Washington, the political side...

...At its recent national convention the AFL-CIO adopted a major policy declaration warning that "our national and international needs call for trained people in the arts and humanities as well as the sciences...

...If we do not seek to develop an appreciation of the beauty of the arts, this phase of culture can become as useless as able-bodied men on the unemployed list...

...In those countries the artist is not called a long-hair, and the intellectual is not dismissed as an egghead...

...rather, our leadership must be firmly based upon an understanding of the people of the world and freedom of exchange of ideas...

...participation in the Brussels World's Fair...

...The Humphrey-Thompson Act of 1956 represents such a developing plan, and provides for the promotion and strengthening of international relations through cultural exchanges and participation in international fairs and festivals...

...The arts enrich and ennoble our lives...

...government as unconcerned with the rich heritage of art and culture of Western civilization...

...I believe that an increasing number of Americans are coming to realize that the art of understanding other people, which lies at the heart of genuine international leadership, is learned by the study of literature, language, philosophy, the arts, and other cultural disciplines...

...Dulles, and the luncheon given by Vice President Richard M. Nixon...

...The potential is there but the call to use is absent...

...How can we develop greater interest in the arts among our citizens...

...The danger is rather that we will respond only to certain facts of the challenge and neglect others...

...The American Council on Education, which represents 140 educational organizations and more than 1,000 educational institutions, recently issued a statement declaring that "continued progress in the human-ites, the arts, and the social sciences, as well as in science and technology, is highly essential to our national survival and well-being...

...The United States has become a military, economic, and political leader of the free world...

...The Commission of Fine Arts, adopting a suggestion of mine, has established an Advisory Panel on the Performing Arts...

...We know that any of the disciplines can become important in terms of the uses to which it is put...

...Considerable time is also devoted to the handicrafts, and special training and study opportunities are afforded artistically gifted youth...

...The legislation was developed following studies by the Congress and the Hoover Commission and will probably be enacted into law before the end of this session...

...2) teacher salary increases...

...According to Miss Robb, "military brass in enough fruit salad and gold braid to equip the whole Albanian army turned up at the state dinner at the White House and that given in Her Majesty's honor at the Pan American Union by John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, and Mrs...

...in education and its tradition in the promotion of the arts...

...In many areas of the world a place of honor is given to leaders in the arts and intellectual fields...

...President, adequate classrooms or chrome-trimmed letter chutes...

...The federal government, particularly the Administration, must wake up immediately to the significance and importance of cultural and educational exchanges...

...There are ominous signs that the present crisis is forcing America to become a Rome rather than an Athens...

...I am convinced the federal government must grasp this nettle because in many areas of the world we are considered anti-intellectual and deficient in culture...

...they give us vision...

...The overwhelming evidence that our art and our artists are having great success abroad as this nation's good-will ambassadors is a source of deep gratification...

...European countries today continue the tradition of court patronage of the fine arts, making available art galleries and museums, opera and theater and extensive programs in the arts as a part of everyday life...

...But in meeting this challenge and the related challenge of scientific education, we may overlook the broader crisis confronting not only the United States but Western civilization itself...

...The challenge to our military security is great...

...There are many Americans who see the need of missiles, but who fail to see that the ultimate validity of national defense depends upon the values we defend rather than the technology of defense...

...That broader crisis is a cultural crisis —one involving economics, art, and religion, as well as military security...

...The U. S. Office of Education reports that the Soviet semi-professional schools, which occupy a position on the U.S.S.R...

...These things are more important than shiny new post offices and multi-lane highways...

...there are special 11-year schools of music, art, and ballet...

...The "See It Now" report of the Columbia Broadcasting System on the triumphant Far Eastern tour of Marian Anderson showed many millions of Americans for the first time how this type of art program promotes cultural understanding...

...Senator Humphrey and I are developing plans to make the Humphrey-Thompson Act provide for a true cultural exchange program in the same way the Fulbright and Smith-Mundt Acts provide for true educational exchange...

...These are some of the steps that are being taken in Washington to advance the arts and make the national capital the cultural center of the free world in the same degree that it is already a political, economic, and military center...

...The danger is not that we will fail to respond to the challenge symbolized by the Soviet Sputniks and economic offensive in Asia and Africa...

...The race today is a race for political, economic, scientific, and cultural supremacy...

...There are many approaches, and to me one of the most important moves we must make is to reach an agreement on a positive program of activities...

...I find myself in agreement with Dr...

...Children are selected each year to attend these schools which provide the academic education of the primary-secondary schools plus rigorous education in the arts...

...The report shows that of 3,425 such schools, 197 are arts schools, 109 are music schools, 48 are creative and applied arts schools, 14 theatrical schools, 15 choreographic schools, and 11 are movie industry and screen acting schools...

...Many view the Russian Sputniks as a direct challenge to our leadership...

...Although the Administration swings between the two extremes of campaigning against all "eggheads" and forming such groups as CASE—the Committee of the Arts and Sciences for Eisenhower—to help re-elect the President, there are many in Washington who are charting a sounder course—a course consistent with our deepest and truest traditions of respect for learning and the arts...

...it must be met with more courage and imagination than we have yet demonstrated...

...This success is having a lasting effect in changing the picture held by the peoples of other countries of the dominant character of the United States and its citizens...

...We need trained diplomats and economists and political scientists and language experts as well as physicists and engineers...

...Tuition at these schools is free and so is board when necessary...

...We can most surely defend ourselves against conquest or domination...

...Among other things this Act establishes a top-level federal committee concerned with the arts both abroad and at home...

...The new art committee serves in an advisory capacity to the Secretary of State, the President of the United States, the director of the United States Information Agency, and other leading officials...

...We must not depend upon material wealth to maintain world prestige...

...the Congress has taken the following steps to meet the Russian cultural challenge: • Appropriated more than $14 million for U.S...

...They are coming to realize, too, I think, that the federal government has a vital function to perform in providing emphasis to the enduring values of our civilization...

...During the first six of the ten grades in their primary-secondary schools, Soviet students take one hour of drawing and one hour of singing each week...

...There are many people who see the need of military and political allies, but who fail to see the significance of cultural exchange in art, music, and drama...

...I do not need to document the low esteem in which artists and intellectuals have long been held in this country...

...Recently 13 members of the House Education and Labor Committee wrote the President asking, "Which is more important, Mr...

...Unfortunately, until recently Washington officials considered that brains, science, the humanities, and the arts were expendable...

...If we fail to keep ahead in education, to provide both quality in education and adequate facilities for study, we will be disastrously endangering our nation's future...

...As with everything else in the U.S.S.R., the fine arts are intended to serve the aims of the Communist Party and have become a highly effective instrument in the achievement of the Party's approved objectives and policy...

...The Senate Public Works Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds has concluded hearings on a measure Senator Fulbright and I have sponsored to establish a National Capital Center of the Performing Arts as a branch of the Smithsonian Institution, and there is every likelihood it will pass in the Congress...

...When Queen Elizabeth recently visited our country, both President Eisenhower and the Queen called for a pool of the best technological, scientific, and cultural brains in the Western world to out-match the Russians...

...Henry Heald, president of the Ford Foundation, who said recently that education and exercise of the mind are not luxuries but necessities...

...The AFL-CIO has advised the Congress it is appalled by the President's failure to mention the classroom shortage in his plans for meeting the recession, and lists the educational needs of the country in this order: 1) school construction...

...There are many Americans who see clearly the need of legions of armed men, but who fail to see the need of a broad general education in the humanities...

...It is the cultivation of this cultural heritage which should be one of our primary objectives for development in the immediate future if we wish to gain the respect of peoples throughout the world...

...As Walter Lippmann, one of the most competent critics of our times, noted recently, there is— "an ominous tendency in American education to teach more and more students less and less of the great disciplines which form an educated man...

...Highways, moon trips, missiles, and post offices are undoubtedly needed but it is time we put first things first...

...A mature, stable, and enlightened government must have wisdom which is infused with a deep humanism to command the respect of our allies, the allegiance of the uncommitted peoples, and the loyalty of our citizens...

...The report also shows that there are more than 50 institutions of higher education which offered art as a major course...

...Legislation sponsored by Senator J. W. Fulbright, Senator Humphrey, and myself to appoint an assistant to the Secretary of State for International Cultural Relations to coordinate the Fulbright, Smith-Mundt, Humphrey-Thompson, and Mutual Security programs, to avoid duplication and save money, has been approved by the Department of State and the Bureau of the Budget...

...Keen observers in and out of government, federal officials, and the Congress are alarmed over Russian propaganda that depicts the U.S.S.R...

...These programs are considered to be a part of the education of every citizen...

...The Administration is cutting back FRANK THOMPSON, a Democratic Representative from New Jersey, has been one of the foremost leaders in Congress in behalf of legislation emphasizing the need for American cultural development and cultural exchange with foreign nations...

...Although many recognize the man-made moons of the Soviet Union as a technical challenge to our nation, I consider the real challenge to come from the rapid progress of the U.S.S.R...

...Now it is talking about trips to the moon...

...as the cradle of culture and the fine arts, and the U.S...

...This measure would provide a building which would be erected on government-donated land...

...Enacted legislation sponsored by Senators Clinton Anderson and Hubert Humphrey and myself, transferring the historic Patent Office Building to the Smithsonian Institution to provide a permanent home of the century-old National Collection of Fine Arts, a National Portrait Gallery, and an important program of contemporary art...

...It is in this, more than in the the ups and downs in the military balance of power, that there lies the deepest danger to our American society...

...We must understand this before time runs out for us...

...However, the columnist, Inez Robb, reported that the lists of those attending the four glittering dinners attended by the Queen during her stay in Washington did not contain the name of the one person distinguished in the arts and sciences...

...Concurrent with action to meet the new scientific threat of the U.S.S.R...

...As the city of Athens so long ago became known as the home of all learning, so must America be known not only for her great strength and high levels of production but also for her humane world leadership, her enduring democratic traditions, and her rich heritage of the arts of many cultures...

...What we have to worry about is that with the declining level of education, with the vulgarization of the cultural standards in our mass society, we shall become a big but second-rate people, fat, Philistine, and self-indulgent...

...its education program while giving us bigger and better missiles, highways, and post offices...

...The arts can either serve the cause of democracy or only wait upon our call...

...It also works with the Operations Coordinating Board which is headed by Under Secretary of State Christian A. Herter, and with an inter-agency committee of top government officials, including the Librarian of Congress, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, and the director of the National Gallery of Art...

...educational ladder between the primary-secondary school and the institution of higher learning, provide extensive and thorough art education...

...The recent triumph of the 23-year old Texas pianist, Van Cliburn, who won the first prize in the Soviet Union's international Tchaikovsky piano competition, is also an outstanding example of the international language of the arts and their tremendous potential for promoting international cultural understanding...

...This program should accomplish certain objectives such as the development of international relations, the expansion of our knowledge and appreciation of the many different patterns of culture throughout the world, and the extension to more of our citizens of an opportunity to participate in widespread cultural activity...

...The success of our leadership depends largely upon a proper balance between material and non-material values in our daily lives, in our education, in the use of leisure time...

...Such evidence may be found, for instance, in a Manila newspaper report that "Asians by the thousands have modified their concept of America as an originally materialistic country after going through the beautiful experience of listening to an American symphony orchestra or hearing wise words from the mouth of so native an American as William Faulkner...

...In some of the larger cities of the U.S.S.R...

...3) inclusion of the humanites as well as science in any federal scholarship program...