COPING WITH CORPORATE POWER: Prospectus for a New Party

...Unless struggles for the poor focus on the wealth and power of the very rich and on huge and undertaxed corporate incomes, we are certain to see intensification of racial conflict in the next decade...

...The regulars and the corporate interests that support them have firm control over the party apparatus...

...The prospects are for more of the same...

...Moreover, anti-corporate sentiment has begun to find expression in grass-roots citizens' campaigns that often unite traditionally antagonistic constituencies...

...Opposition to the use of the word "socialist" to describe the new party would come from those who adhere to the pragmatic, liberal tradition in America...

...The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, a new group initiated by Michael Harrington, has involved such union figures as Victor Reuther of the United Auto Workers and David Selden of the American Federation of Teachers in top leadership positions...

...The new party could align itself with those struggling against a foreign policy which serves corpprate power and thwarts the needs of people around the world...

...By guaranteeing blacks and other minorities a clear and independent voice in the new party, while offering new hope and opportunity for white working people as well, the party could begin rebuilding the joint approach that was so badly shattered in the late 1960s...

...On the surface, such a campaign would seem insane...

...During a period of great inflationary pressure on wages, people are increasingly unhappy with boring, dead-end,'and often dangerous work, which produces goods and services of doubtful utility and declining quality...

...What is left is a deep uneasiness and uncertainty...

...Common Causey the "citizens' lobby" with an anti-corporate accent, has often been described as the reflection of a third force in American politics...

...The scenario: • In the next year Nixon is impeached or compelled to resign...

...In a number of recent strikes—Farah, United Farm Workers, Shell, and Brookside mine—labor groups have begun to find allies among consumers, students, and even environmental constituencies...

...Martin Luther King consistently called himself a democratic socialist, as does his successor in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Reverend Ralph Abernathy...

...At this point, the American Left hardly seems prepared to take advantage of the opportunities opening before it...

...The Black Panther Party has also sought to speak to people through recent Democratic Party primaries and, repudiating violent rhetoric, made a strong showing in the Oakland elections last year...

...to embark upon the difficult and virtually uncharted path of party building, to hold together groups with long histories of mutual antagonism, will require at least an elemental understanding of what we are struggling for...

...As a transitional step toward a new party, activist and left groups might formalize a coalition or federation structure in 1975...

...But when McGovern took his campaign to Wall Street, the business community swiftly dispelled such illusions, angrily rejecting his proposals for tax reform and income redistribution...

...It is reflected in the numbers of people who do not vote—46 per cent of adults in 1972—and the increasing numbers who register as independent—34 per cent, according to a recent Gallup poll...

...Rather it could provide progressive democratic perspectives about the direction of the country...

...People react with frustration and rage to overcrowded cities—impersonal communities that are wastelands of crime and fear—to the abrasive and artificial character of the entertainment media, to the ravaging of the environment...

...The crucial factor is that the traditional Democratic coalition is beginning to break up...

...Confidence in corporations has declined sharply in the last seven years, from 55 per cent in 1967 to 25 per cent in late 1973, according to a Gallup poll...

...The continuing revelations of Watergate and the impeachment movement lend depth and self-awareness to the implicit anti-corporate bloc...

...And in the anguished aftermath of a successful impeachment process, the Jackson message would be reassuring to many who saw no other place to turn...

...Finally, there are other left circles—and forces in the black community—that are focusing on the need for greater unity or even a new party...

...It seems virtually certain that if a popular left force does not begin to give voice and direction to the growing anti-corporate anger, then a.right-wing politician like Wallace will, through demagogic appeals to fear and uncertainty...

...Even if he (or, more likely, a lesser known candidate like Walter Mondale) were to take up the liberal standard in the 1976 primaries, it seems highly unlikely that he could overcome the combined Wallace-Jackson strength...

...A new party could not simply be formed—and sustained—against a common enemy...

...The Democratic Party cannot be the instrument which gives full expression to such currents...

...Such attitudes are reflected now in a wide variety of groups, from Common Cause to the Movement for Economic Justice and the Peoples Bicentennial...

...A democratic socialist vision, humanely and understandably expressed, would align a new party in America with the yet unrealized aspirations of most of the world's peoples...

...The courageous Representative from California, Ron Dellums, has begun to give a future party a possible language with his analysis that the great majority of Americans are "treated like niggers...

...The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee has begun to give expression to such politics, and a new party might involve progressive unionists and part of the black community's leadership that hold such views...

...But the discussion of such a party, how it might be formed and what purposes it might serve, are issues of the gravest concern and significance for the future of the American Left, the American political process, and the American people...

...a strong "regular" group dominated by Meany and Jackson, with a dash of populist rhetoric and a strongly anti-reform and anti-detente cast, and a coalition of liberal and left forces (including some who are openly socialist, like the members of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee), made up of minorities, feminists, progressive unionists, and others...

...The New Politics for which McGovern spoke was, in many ways, deeply sensitive and humane...

...that Americans are happy and prosperous as never before...

...A new party will not find it possible, of course, to develop major campaigns around all the crisis areas in its first year, or in its first several years...

...But it could begin to set a new kind of agenda for the nation by raising such issues forcefully, and pointing out why our problems exist...

...The socialist Left shares with American liberalism a tendency toward moral posturing—toward preaching at people and reproaching them rather than trusting and valuing their judgment...

...Arthur Kinoy of the National Lawyers Guild, among others, has proposed creation of a new "party of the people...

...Through the next year the possibility of a new party is discussed in ever broader circles, including existing groups on the Left, women's, black, and other minority organizations, peace groups and environmental forces, the ranks of progressive labor...

...The final collapse of the coalition may take two years, or four, or six, but the fundamental trend seems irreversible...

...One can easily imagine a scenario: Senator Edward M. Kennedy wins the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976 on the crest of a movement that has captured the imaginations of millions looking for new Harry Boyte, a founder of the New American Movement, has been active for the past decade in civil rights, labor and community organizing, and antiwar work in the South...

...If there is a massive leftist expression of anti-corporate sentiment, it will almost certainly come from outside the Democratic Party...

...It would draw from both the native-American populist and socialist traditions in speaking of a future "cooperative commonwealth," and from the possibilities for democracy and abundance inherent in a highly developed technology...

...In some areas of the country, the vote would be much higher, and the party would succeed in electing a number of local officials...

...The opportunity exists for forming a third party of great strength—an activist party that would reflect the tide of anti-corporate sentiment and project a vision of a different and better future...

...Against the backdrop of a Jackson-Wallace/Ford race, the party might receive 10 per cent or more of the nationwide vote...

...However superficially convincing, though, such a scenario is, in fact, unlikely, for it fails to take into account the currents in the society which have the potential for generating major political realignments in the next few years...

...A second constituency would stand in the democratic socialist tradition and identify with the ideals of planning, state ownership of essential industries, and advanced welfare programs...

...Our society cannot continue indefinitely to decay...

...At the same time, his retreat left the insurgent coalition in disarray...

...And the first indications of the explosive conflicts within the party appeared in 1972, when economic reality shattered the McGovern movement's confident optimism...

...The cement that joined some business interests with labor, minorities, and intellectuals throughout the post-World War II period—a rapidly expanding economy—has crumbled...

...directions...

...The Republicans are hardly likely to attack proposals for more military spending, much less emerge as the party of anti-corporate sentiment...

...A new party could develop a new approach toward elections...

...Last year George Wiley, founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization, formed the Movement for Economic Justice with a clearly populist orientation—what he called a "majority strategy...

...He has written for The Nation and other magazines and is now working on a history of social conflict in the South...

...The media rarely reflect the degree of discontent and anger in the country, which began building long before Watergate and the energy crisis...

...the anti-corporate sentiments which fuel it have found both left and right-wing expression and could be channeled in either direction...

...The Democrats have already retreated from the position they took on women's participation in the 1972 convention...

...And, of course, Ralph Nader's organizations have been both an expression of and catalyst for citizen anger at corporate power...

...On the other hand, some would argue that the inherently repressive nature of the state and the alienation of so many Americans from it dictate a policy of abstention from electoral politics...

...The national mood that will follow Richard M. Nixon's probable impeachment seems likely to call for the renewal and revitalization of traditional values and institutions...

...The word has lost many of its negative and fearful connotations—witness the leadership that socialists have been able to take in a number of anti-corporate struggles, or the willingness of such labor leaders as Reuther and Selden, and such liberal spokesmen as John Kenneth Galbraith, to use the word in self-description...

...its premise held that minorities should be afforded the same opportunities that "most Americans" have—that they should be brought into the mythical mainstream...

...To already hard-pressed middle-income and labor groups, the McGovern candidacy came to represent a further threat to their financial situation: They would have to bear the brunt of paying for new reforms...

...Such a retreat symbolizes what will be the Democratic Party's extreme "caution" about the "women's issue...

...One can see early signs of new activism on many sides: The impeachment movement has sunk roots in thousands of local communities...

...Yet there are powerful reasons for calling it a socialist party from the beginning...

...there are many obstacles to its realization...

...Such a projection seems plausible up to a point...

...Equally important, it does not realistically appraise the disintegration of the Democratic Party's coalition base under the impact of those forces...

...At first glance, the conditions seem ripe for another attempt to "reform" the Democratic Party...

...McGovern was forced to retreat, though he still lost—overwhelmingly—the support of traditionally Democratic business circles...

...The strike waged by the Oil, Chemical, and Atomic Workers Union against Shell Oil last year aligned fourteen major environmental groups with Shell workers against health and environmental hazards...

...Moreover, its timing is uncertain, as is the timetable for its support from particular groups...

...by stressing candor, humor, and broad participation, it could help spark a multifaceted movement for a new society...

...Talking to people anywhere in the country, one senses that many of the old differences about the war, about hair length, about the work ethic, have faded or disappeared...

...But the proclamation of such an ultimate goal must be linked to concrete struggles for immediate improvement in people's lives...

...It would be folly to minimize the obstacles in the way of a new party: the potential divisions over issues and directions, the background of rhetoric, suspicion, open hostility, and the difficulty of winning a place on the ballot in many states/Yet the future of America may well depend upon whether such a new party can emerge...

...The asceticism, moralizing, and narrow focus on poverty that characterize such groups ironically express in different form many themes from the New Politics of the 1960s...

...Under the cover of "restoring the party to the political' mainstream," the Democratic "regulars" have all but destroyed the effectiveness of the reform movement...

...The corporate grip on the Democrats is stronger than ever, as recent disclosures of illegal corporate contributions to Lyndon B. Johnson, Hubert H. Humphrey, and Wilbur Mills demonstrate...

...The Citizens Action Project in Chicago, for example, has united black and white community groups against corporations on a variety of issues...

...Its style and spirit would demonstrate to large numbers of Americans the possibility of an alternative politics—and it is the lack of such a sense of possibility which now stifles people's imagination and hope most of all...

...Many in a new party would think of themselves as "populists," enraged at corporate tyranny and determined to fight for greater democracy and equality...

...The economic and social history of the last decade, and the prospects for the future, cast grave doubts on the viability of the traditional Democratic partnership between progressive labor forces, minorities, women, and intellectuals on the one hand, and the more farsighted business interests, southern reactionaries, racists, and militarists on the other...

...It appears in the faces of blissed-out young followers of the latest guru, or in the quiet resignation of old people left to die in institutions...

...The question in such a political environment is whether the Left can act imaginatively and humanely to begin the transformation of American politics...

...It is a crucial time in which to work and build...

...American business faces a period of prolonged uncertainty, foreign competition, and major shortages...

...Moreover, the impeachment movement is largely independent of the Democrats—a force to be reckoned with in its own right...

...The reality is that Jackson has emerged as the leading spokesman for the Democrats...

...Among the major currents on the Left today, the majority consists of progressives, radicals, and socialists who still identify to a greater or lesser extent with the Democratic Party, and who furnish its activist base in many places...

...The nation's conscience was fired by the civil rights movement and then outraged by endless war...

...that to win in 1976, the Democrats should shed their "fear and guilt complex" and return to the "mainstream" by talking about what's right with America...

...Yet the Democrats' retreat comes at a time of growing sympathy for the women's movement, whose vision of cooperative and democratic relationships finds deep resonance among vast numbers of women (and many men as well) in a period of spreading violence, growing depersonalization, and cynical and manipulative politics...

...Without a major new political force to unite diverse constituencies in common opposition to corporate power, the next few years are likely to be the arena for even sharper clashes between potential allies...

...There would, in sum, appear to be the growing basis for an activist movement to revitalize the Democratic Party for 1976...

...And the Brookside mine strike against Duke Power this year has brought together miners concerned about health conditions and consumers angered by rate increases and the company's growing reliance on nuclear power...

...Jackson's positions and recent statements leave no doubt that he will look toward the Right rather than the Left to win the Democratic presidential nomination...

...The left grouping will attempt to bring up issues of program and political direction, while the party regulars will seek to make the convention purely administrative and procedural...

...The identity of the new party would revolve largely around the question of whether to proclaim its goal as a democratic, socialist America...

...Kennedy, for instance, sensing the realities of power in the party, has been a feeble and vacillating leader of liberal forces on such issues as health care...

...In the last several years, such activists have increasingly come to understand the fundamental interrelationship of issues and the deep need for coordination...

...The Democrats have retreated from their guidelines on minority participation, and in 1976 will offer up their own version of "benign neglect...

...It has spurred the growth of organizations outside the electoral process to represent particular groups' interests—NOW, Common Cause, Welfare Rights, and environmental groups...

...Great numbers of people are simply fed up with what they experience and what they see around them...

...Elements of the Old Left and some of the remnants of the New remain in tightly organized, Leninist parties and sects...

...In the absence of unity, individuals and fragmented organizations suffer discouragement and defeat because of small numbers and lack of support from potential allies...

...Most Americans simply do not believe in or want the future which now seems inevitable under our present course...

...Evidence of profound alienation from the normal political assumptions and structures is at every hand...

...With electoral campaigns growing directly out of organizing efforts and helping to reinforce such efforts, a new definition of "politics" would appear on the American scene—politics could come to be seen as the opportunity for wide participation in struggles around the everyday issues that affect people's lives...

...The influential Chicago Defender, a historic voice of black America, recently called for a third party...

...The following is a scenario for a new party...

...Other national groups have emerged to give expression to the massive anti-corporate feeling...

...And a new nationwide activist organization of democratic socialists, the New American Movement, has taken major initiatives in a number of struggles aimed at corporate and governmental power...

...At the same time, the party would understand that even the best programs are eroded and undermined without constant popular mobilization...

...Much of the political approach that such a slate would take is revealed in The Real America, a new book by chief Jackson strategist and speechwriter Ben Wattenberg, who contends that conventional liberalism has, in fact, been successful...

...Moreover, the assault on wages and the increasing productivity pressure come at a time when many people are rebelling against work that is senseless, monotonous, and dangerous...

...The base of any new party would have to come from those activists who now do their work in particular organizations, around specific issues, but whose combined efforts amount to a massive constituency of people who see themselves working for basic changes...

...A major focus of such a structure would be the development of a common program and strategy for dealing with the key issues of the late 1970s, for an essential part of the interim work of party building would be fashioning, strengthening, and expanding movements that fight the corporate stranglehold over the nation...

...The atmosphere of fear and repression his Administration fostered is gradually being dissipated...

...Harrington's Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee, for instance, hopes to supply an active and visible socialist presence at party conventions...

...Such viewpoints are now represented in the Black Panthers, the New American Movement, a number of radical state parties, several city socialist-feminist unions of women, some rank and file caucuses in labor, and parts of the gay movement...

...More ominously, it is demonstrated in suicide rates, violence, and drugs, and in the deep cynicism on the nation's campuses...

...Perhaps most significant for what it augurs in the future is the emergence of an open socialist voice and leadership in anti-corporate campaigns...

...Indeed, without any common medium which can unite people against corporate power, irresistible pressures sometimes develop to fight among each other: parents against striking teachers, environmentalists against the poor who need jobs, feminists against men who can imagine no vision of community which will support them, young blacks against whites afraid of violence, welfare recipients against middle-income taxpayers...

...Among the issues discussed, two of the most controversial concern the "identity" of the new party and its stance toward electoral politics...

...His candidacy made a poor showing in 1972 because of his late entry and low visibility, but since then his prominence on the energy crisis and his harsh approach to the issue of detente with Russia have given him major recognition...

...Parts of it are awash in exotic rhetoric that most people find incomprehensible, or trapped in dogmatic dead ends where hours are spent debating the "correct position" for a leaflet or statement of principles...

...Most people fear chaos, and for good reason: They deeply want to build a future they can comprehend, and in which they can believe...

...It should be emphasized at the outset—to avoid the kind of facile optimism rife in the 1960s—that the scenario is speculative...

...The network of existing third parties in the People's Party, the New American Movement, and the Socialist Party, U.S., have held discussions this year about the possibilities of merger...

...Whether or not a new party decided to call itself socialist from the beginning, it would undoubtedly involve a great diversity of viewpoints and encompass three distinct political currents that already have taken organizational form...

...Such a party would be serious about its electoral politics, rejecting the naive view that nothing is decided by political campaigns...

...As yet, this bloc lacks self-consciousness and coherence...

...This consideration leads to the other issue of central importance to a new party: how it relates to the electoral process...

...He has made it plain that he would accept a Wallace vice presidential candidacy...

...It could help coordinate and communicate information about various workers' struggles...

...Deeply concerned with winning real victories—with reversing, for instance, the rising tide of a new militarism in the country—they might suggest that talk of socialism is premature, that a new party should be seen as a radical-on-its-way-to-being-socialist party to avoid alienating Americans who are afraid of the word...

...Left-wing congressional Democrats, for example, might join a new party in significant numbers only after a Jackson presidency had proven its inability to solve the nation's problems...

...In particular, a new party could convey something of the spirit of battles for workplace democracy, battles that have escalated fiercely in the last several years, especially in Europe, but that remain invisible to most Americans...

...Such established Party powers as Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, George Meany of the AFL-CIO, and Al Barkan of COPE are pushing Henry Jackson, "the Senator from Boeing," for the K)76 presidential nomination...

...the independent truckers' strike a few months back was greeted with a remarkable degree of public sympathy...

...Nixon's center-right coalition is in shambles...

...The Democratic Party's new charter demolishes the reform movement's vision of a more activist, democratic party...

...The mini-convention is likely to provide a preview of 1976: The selection process will produce a meeting at Kansas City with three strong elements—a right-wing, pro-Wallace bloc, whose ideology is a mixture of populist economics and reactionary social theory...

...For many of these, indeed, the anti-corporate tide and the consequent need for the Left to speak to the majority of Americans in rational and understandable terms temporarily reinforces a strategy of working through the Democrats...

...Finally, huge numbers of Americans feel torn from their roots by the collapse of any national community, any collective vision of the future...

...And to pay for reforms, the Government could tap the nation's ever growing wealth, close the tax loopholes of the rich, and sharply cut the Pentagon's budget...

...Everywhere, the impact on American politics could be profound...

...And the likely programmatic poverty of the Democrats after this year's elections—a poverty which will be even more evident in a veto-proof Congress—further deepens, the recognition that anew political alternative is needed...

...Instead of seeing elections as the end in themselves, or the election of "good candidates" as its purpose, a new party could see elections as a means—among many—for accomplishing reform...

...The Left has yet to speak to the society's personal dislocations in sensitive and realistic ways— certainly the communes and dropout life styles that enjoy a brief vogue are unrealistic for most Americans...

...A Harris poll last fall revealed broad popular understanding that the nation's crisis is rooted in the corporate empire: 74 per cent said they believed special interests get more from the Government than the people do...

...At its broadest, the coalition embraces a substantial majority of Americans—blue-collar workers, racial and ethnic minorities, women, major portions of the white collar and service work force, and intellectuals...

...Promising to "get the country moving" yet once again, he denounces special interests, wins a major victory against the incumbent President, Gerald A. Ford, and inaugurates a period of major change—campaign reform, expansion of social services, something resembling a decent health care system, increased Federal spending for mass transportation, housing and other urban needs, tax reform, and cutbacks or freezes on military expenditures...

...it could mobilize large numbers of people for efforts that would extend long beyond the election campaign...

...Such a campaign would be undertaken with great seriousness, but its primary focus would not be on securing the highest possible vote or on publicizing particular candidates' names...

...The process of building a humane and egalitarian Left, and fighting the divisiveness and dehumanization in the society, will be long and difficult, but the process will tap hitherto unreached sources of energy and compassion among the people...

...It would be a mistake, however, to see the defeat of Democratic reform forces simply as the result of behind-the-scenes manipulation, or as a consequence of Senator George McGovern's defeat in 1972...

...Yet one prospect is clear: Under the impact of the Watergate affair and the "energy crisis," anti-corporate feeling has soared to unprecedented heights, and it is sure to find an ultimate political outlet...

...The delegate selection process, for both the "mini-convention" to be held this year and for the 1976 nominating convention, will minimize the influence of grass-roots reformers...

...Moreover, the rationale for using the word socialism is rooted in the nature of the crisis to which such a party would be responding...

...A third group would have a more radical vision of democratic socialism, looking toward a qualitative transformation in social relationships, workers' control over working conditions, and decentralized, participatory political structures...

...The concern for swift, tangible reforms would lead many to urge that the party's central focus should be electoral—"After all, that's where real questions are decided...

...But a huge reservoir of discontent and a profound longing for new directions and new hope would persist among the people...

...In such a context, there is a political vacuum opening on the Left...

...consumers and labor are ever more restive about unrestrained inflation...

...Unions have been under widespread attack for years, but a Democratic administration would not offer significant changes in wages policy or end government pressure for no-strike arrangements in basic industries...

...In this confrontation, the Left is likely to be beaten badly...

...In the next several years, a number of arenas are of particular importance for the development of program: In areas of public policy and the management of the economy, a new federation, and later a new party, could propose and begin to fight for democratic, rational alternatives to present policies in such areas as energy, transportation, housing, and land development, which today serve corporate interests at great expense to the public welfare...

...Most important, he has the benefit of support from the AFL-CIO's powerful political machinery...

...But in the absence of any powerful political third force, such a campaign could effectively demobilize the tide of insurgent feelings that still remains largely underground...

...Yet the New Politics, forged in the 1960s, could never really transcend its assumptions to grasp the deep discontent and frustration among the huge majority of Americans...

...Moreover, through a vision of a multi-racial, multi-cultural future, the party could ignite the imagination of large numbers of people who are in revolt against the destruction of racial and ethnic heritages...

...The most basic questions about the quality of life in our society, about social relationships, about the direction in which we are headed—these questions have come to the fore in the last ten years, and have meshed with rising concern about the bread-and-butter issues that traditionally dominate American politics...

...It seems almost inevitable that some alternative will emerge within the next few years, either on the Left or on the Right, to reshape the language and direction of American politics and, perhaps, determine its course for years to come...

...The Peoples Bicentennial, attempting to redefine the Bicentennial preparations by unearthing the "revolutionary-democratic traditions" in American history, has had striking success...

...Democratic National Chairman Robert Strauss made his career through service to oil interests...

...Over the past decade, a potential coalition has begun to take shape—a new coalition that shares a mounting concern over the enormous power wielded by the huge corporations and the government apparatus they dominate, and that recognizes the need to fight that power for the sake of a more authentic democracy...

...the Democrats are almost certain to sweep the 1974 elections and elect a veto-proof Congress...

...In the course of the primaries, McGovern began to sense and speak to the anti-corporate currents sweeping the country...

...With such an orientation, a party would not have to choose between its "ultimate goal" and concrete reforms...

...In contrast, a new party could begin to undermine the continuing material basis for racism by redefining the way issues of poverty, welfare, and social services programs are now posed...

...A new party could stand at the forefront of the fight for demilitarizing the economy and for democratizing the armed services...

...There was some substance to the recent comment of an oil executive who explained that his company contributed so heavily to Nixon because Republicans cost twice as much as Democrats...

...And in peace circles, among the anti-militarist constituency which would be horrified by a Jackson candidacy, David Mc-Reynolds of the War Resisters League has been an outspoken voice for greater unity and perhaps a new party...

...A campaign run along these lines would attempt to revive the Cold War liberal program, with rhetorical demands for "corporate responsibility" and proposals for public works, but with its central thrust toward major new military expenditures...

...Yet the established political organizations, and the Democratic Party in particular, seem unlikely instruments for the expression of this rising tide of popular sentiment...

...Such a program would be in striking contrast to the militarist program of the Democrats under a Jackson-Wallace ticket, which would talk about making "limited nuclear warfare" a "realistic" possibility...

...they are open to a humanely framed alternative...

...Both Gallup and Harris report that anti-corporate sentiment in the country is stronger now than it was during the Great Depression...

...A new party could build public support for workers' campaigns in social service and government employment, where public pressure and sympathy are vital assets...