CHALLENGE TO THE DEMOCRATS

Clark, Joseph S.

CHALLENGE TO THE DEMOCRATS by JOSEPH S. CLARK For nearly eight critical years our nation has been sitting placidly on the sidelines watching the rest of the world go by. And all the evidence...

...Thus, we should not only enact a health program for the elderly under the Social Security system...
...But the ultimate purpose of the best deterrent weapons systems science and money can produce is not human destruction, but a series of international agreements which will prevent the use of, and eventually eliminate, the weapons involved...
...It would merely reduce the risk of armed attack...
...the national government should move in...
...In our national chase after private material wealth and social status, American leadership has been neglecting its public duty and permitting the public sector of our economy to deteriorate...
...And too many people are not being fully utilized, because they have never had their skills and talents fully developed...
...If we do these things, we can have, without heavy sacrifice, the money we need, within a balanced budget, to meet our public responsibilities...
...We are an urban, not a rural nation...
...The development of our water resources: The careful and proficient use of one of our greatest national assets—our water resources—is now a matter of national, not just regional, interest...
...It would not remove Communist capability to destroy us and our allies...
...To meet this challenge to survival from abroad, we must be as bold and imaginative as in meeting our domestic challenges...
...It would merely provide a little more time to come to grips with the real problem: how to achieve world peace through world law...
...In the long run, we will lose the competition with a mobilized society unless we mobilize our resources also...
...There is no inconsistency between maximum employment, maximum production of useful goods and services, and reasonable price stability...
...A great multitude of influential Americans regard their national government with suspicion and hostility...
...It would not remove the ever-present danger of war by accident rather than design...
...The men who made America were not timid men, and most of them, in my partisan judgment, were liberal democrats at heart...
...Perhaps the most important is in our attitude towards the national JOSEPH S. CLARK, Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania, has emerged in recent years as one of the leaders of the liberal bloc in Congress...
...What are the areas at home in which our change of purpose should become manifest...
...Instead of checking our growth with unsound monetary measures— restraining credit and deliberately running up the interest rate—we should be utilizing unused plant capacity, putting unemployed and underemployed citizens back to work, and producing the wealth which yields the tax revenues needed to remedy the obsolescence in the public sector of our economy...
...While we have been sitting on the sidelines a great many things have been happening, here at home as well as abroad, that are not good for America—things which our children and grandchildren will not be proud of...
...And with thousands of people moving from rural areas into the cities and suburbs every year, surely we require a Department of Urban Affairs as urgently as we continue to need a Department of Agriculture...
...America's military capabilities must be strengthened to offset growing Communist military might...
...The great weakness of the last decade has been an increasing political lag—a growing failure of our democracy to take the political action necessary to meet obvious social and economic needs...
...But the vital need is a bold attack on both unemployment and inadequate production...
...We are in an arms race with the Communists, and it would be folly to forget it...
...Maintenance of an East-West power balance in an ever-accelerating and ever-more-dangerous arms race must not be accepted as the ultimate objective...
...Outrageous tax loopholes must be closed...
...Before Christmas, following three or so months of eating hot lunches at school, the children had gained an average of three to five pounds, but the gain was wiped out during the Christmas vacation when the children ate at home...
...And the Democrats will need guts this year...
...Trained manpower where it is needed for the public good: The United States is witnessing a tremendous waste of its manpower resources...
...This does not mean that we should neglect our farms...
...But there is no need to subsidize corporate farming...
...Tax chiselers must be punished...
...The states have not adequately protected their own urban-directed citizens...
...It is irresponsible to laugh off unbalanced budgets in times of general prosperity...
...We liberal Democrats should not take the easy way out...
...In this monumental field we now have a confusing hodge-podge of committees, commissions, and study groups examining problems piecemeal...
...The other major area in which there have been developments which are not good for America is the field of foreign affairs...
...The failure of our political leadership to recognize America's true goals presents a challenge to the Democrats to adopt a platform which enunciates these philosophical, political, and economic principles, and to nominate a candidate who will enthusiastically lead the fight and put them into practice...
...economy...
...It is the philosophy of a dead past, and the Republicans, not the Democrats, are the defenders of outmoded ways of political life...
...A federal fair employment practices act and a workable voting rights bill must be enacted into law...
...This astounding statement summarizes the narrow vision, the in-sensitivity, indeed, the actual evil and danger, in the philosophy of those in control of the executive branch of our government...
...Yet there is no reason why a demo-ocratic economic system should not promote the greatest general economic well-being amid conditions of maximum personal freedom and human well-being...
...Civil rights and civil liberties: Our freedoms must be protected from the assaults of the surviving McCarthyites and their inevitable successors...
...Yet whenever the suggestion is made that we turn to Washington to meet a new public need, a cry of horror arises...
...I want to consider first the developments on the domestic scene...
...The weight of school children was checked at the opening of the fall semester and again before and after their Christmas vacations...
...The great challenge of the times is to design and present to the Communists a system of arms control and peace-keeping machinery which offers an acceptable alternative to the present dangerously delicate balance of terror...
...Why is it that so many Americans are afraid of our national government...
...If we can increase the gross national product, we can devote a greater proportion of our income to improving the physical conditions of urban life...
...Too many people are doing nothing at all...
...In our typically American term, they had "guts...
...Let us use it in the public interest before it is too late...
...It is only our national government which can mobilize and commit the resources of our society where they are most needed...
...We must also take drastic and immediate steps to equip our colleges and universities to turn out more and better-educated students in the years ahead...
...Conservation and development of natural resources: Destruction of our forests, the increase of soil erosion, failure to manage and conserve our mineral wealth cannot be permitted to continue if America is to grow and prosper...
...But perhaps even more important and effective would be a President who believes in civil rights for all Americans and is prepared to take moral leadership in the fight to eliminate second-class citizenship...
...The creation of the Senate Select Committee on Water Resources is evidence that Congress recognizes the national scope of our problems in this field...
...America needs more and better teachers, scholars, scientists, doctors, musicians, artists, poets, writers, and politicians...
...The Democrats had better appreciate that this is no time for timid men, no time for the worship of the conventional wisdom, no time to stand still...
...The Democrats will join this multitude at their peril...
...The construction industry is already spending $50 billion a year, but it is reliably estimated that this sum should be tripled...
...Today our attitude towards peace and, indeed, towards adequate defense until we can achieve peace, is timid when it should be bold...
...Obviously, the best deterrent system could not give us security...
...The growth of our economy means an increased level of expectation not only for consumer goods but for the services on which our health and welfare depend...
...Civil rights is unfinished business...
...Decent health for all Americans: Long overdue attention is being focused this year on the problem of providing adequate medical care for the elderly...
...Too many people are doing the wrong things...
...Each of the four major river systems in Pennsylvania has headwaters in another state—an illustration of why a federal water policy is necessary if we are to deal competently with problems of quantity, purity, price, fluoridation, flood control, recreation, navigation, and—along the seaboard—intrusion of salinity...
...Indeed, preservation of the family farm through adequate assistance from the federal government is essential...
...We have been told by the chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, Dr...
...The size and scope of these problems call for a central policy and a central agency for continuous inventory and appraisal of our national resources, charged with recommending to the President and the Congress the kind of adjustments needed to meet changes in industrial technology...
...Fortunately, there is genuine hope that the Democratic Party will nominate a candidate with the will to resume for our country the role of creative participant in world affairs...
...It is fiscal responsibility to condone controllable inflation...
...We, the people of the United States, created our federal government to form a more perfect union and to provide for the general welfare...
...I believe we can find, through voluntary methods of inducement, guidance and counseling ways to achieve the same ends which the Soviet Union achieves through compulsion...
...The Court is indeed the guardian of our individual liberties...
...But there are still six million housing units which should be demolished and replaced with safe and sanitary structures...
...Instead of wringing our hands over wage and price increases and the rise in gold exports, we must direct our attention towards increasing the rate of useful growth of our economy...
...In recent years, despite general prosperity, we have come to accept a relatively high rate of unemployment as "normal...
...Elsewhere in the world the national government is the tool with which free people tackle problems public in character and national in scope...
...What these responsibilities are is fairly clear: Eradication of poverty: When the Special Senate Committee on Unemployment Problems held hearings in West Virginia last fall, we were told of a survey in one of the public schools designed to measure the effect of the school's hot lunch program...
...A large-scale expansion of academic facilities— libraries, laboratories, and classrooms —is required to meet the mushrooming demands on our colleges and universities...
...As a result of coordinated local and federal effort, the inventory of substandard housing in America has been drastically cut in the last twenty years...
...For the aim of our economy is not the production of more consumer goods...
...They crossed the ocean and conquered the continent because they had courage and vision...
...We must have a larger, better-trained, and better-paid corps of professors and instructors...
...We should use the full power of the federal government to maintain reasonable price stability...
...A chaotic and undirected society, chasing after personal material wealth, cannot long compete with the determined, mobilized, and aggressive society which confronts us on the other side of the iron curtain...
...But if our hope is to serve the country as the country needs to be served, we must find a Presidential candidate who will campaign with conviction on a platform which asserts that all the tools of government available in a free society must be used in the interests of social, economic, and political justice at home and abroad...
...Economic and social expansion will slow down and prevent us from realizing our great potentials, unless we have a comprehensive water resource and development program...
...We must replace a psychology of timidity with one of confidence in our future...
...This is the object of everything we are working at—to produce things for consumers...
...A revaluation of our traditional concept of federalism—outmoded as long ago as the end of the Nineteenth Century by the nationalization of our economy and the urbanization of our society— needs our urgent and immediate attention...
...The historic decisions of the U. S. Supreme Court should be a matter of great pride, not viewed with alarm...
...We must have stricter tax enforcement—and as a result of Democratic Congressional pressure, we are about to get it...
...Clearly, there must be aggressive new leadership in the field of foreign policy and a greater initiative in the search for world law and disarmament...
...an environment which places no ceiling on the aspirations of Americans of every color and creed to live the good life in freedom and to contribute to the spiritual advancement of Western civilization...
...That simple illustration conveys in a small way what poverty costs this rich nation in human suffering and waste...
...Yet the contrast of luxurious mansion and wretched slum, of airy, comfortable suburb and decaying, crowded central city is daily evidence of man's inhumanity to man...
...We should insist that the federal government collect sufficient revenues to balance the budget and yet meet our responsibilities at home and abroad...
...This is perhaps the most acute aspect of the problem of providing adequate health care, but I believe all Americans should have access to complete medical care at a price they can afford...
...If this hope becomes a reality, the American people once again will have a chance to do what they did in 1800, in 1828, in 1912, and in 1932: endorse a fundamental change of purpose in American political life...
...And all the evidence indicates there is grave danger that, unless a liberal Democrat is elected to the Presidency in November, America will continue to sit on the sidelines for still another four crucial years...
...For most of the past eight years there has been a steady deterioration in both American world power and in American leadership for peace, culminating in the recent Summit fiasco...
...The Democratic candidate must generate an electric response in each of us, a determination to put our talents to use for the benefit not only of ourselves but of all mankind...
...Great civilizations have fallen because they have failed to meet the challenge of dealing intelligently with their physical environment...
...It is to provide a decent and healthy environment for every American man, woman, and child, an environment which builds a strong floor beneath which we will not permit the standard of living of the poorest American to fall...
...The sooner we discover this new America and act accordingly the better it will be for the future of our country...
...The best educational system in the world from grade to graduate school: We must help our primary and secondary schools through a program of federal aid for classroom construction and teachers' salaries...
...We must use our strength to negotiate enforceable disarmament agreements and to promote the rule of law as the enforceable foundation for world peace...
...In a state like my own—Pennsylvania—our population explosion and increasing industrial growth are having a serious impact on a water supply which we have wasted in the past and have still not harnessed in any orderly way...
...Legislation is needed to give the executive department authority and funds to help and hasten school integration...
...A decent home for every American family: This goal was stated as a national objective as long ago as the Housing Act of 1937...
...And we should be helping financially every high school graduate who needs economic aid and who has the capacity and character necessary to benefit from college training...
...The economy can grow, the federal budget can be balanced, and the needs of our people met with the assistance of sensible public leadership...
...If necessary, we may have to go part of the way back to the tax rate structure as it was before the irresponsible Republican tax cut of 1954...
...Raymond J. Saulnier, that "the ultimate purpose of the American economy is to produce more consumer goods...
...If this should happen, our freedom and security would be in greater danger than ever before in our history...
...we should appropriate federal funds for such programs as aid for hospital construction and medical research, and we should continue to probe the outrageous drug prices which mean that for many people good health has been priced out of the market...
...A larger share of our gross national product should be devoted to the rehabilitation of urban areas, even if, as a result, we have less money to spend for tobacco, alcohol, and cosmetics...

Vol. 24 • September 2006 • No. 7


 
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