( Commentary
On the right. . . William F. Buckley Jr.
George McGovern: the new religion
MIAMI BEACH - There are those
who say that the politics of George
McGovern is a new politics based on
great shifts in ideological sentiment.
Professor Galbraith, using to be sure a
kind of shorthand, says that the new
issues are 1) global communism, 2) the
redistribution of wealth, and 3)
economic growth Concerning which
tin* Democratic avant garde believes 1)
that we have done quite enough of
containment, 2) that we should have
more of it; and 3) that it isn’t a cure to
all human problems.
But there is something else in the
McGovern Spirit, and it is quite
countable here in Miami. It is the sense
of absolute, total self righteousness. It
is manifestly intolerant of different
opinions, and disposed, towards those
who hold them, to dismiss them as
cretins It was worth noting, for in
stance, the attitude of typical young
McGovemites toward Hubert Hum
phrey They hate him.
It seems an odd word to use but it is
something like the appropriate word.
They feel an utter contempt for him. I
attempted to probe this attitude, in
talking with a young delegate who is
highly placed in the youth-McGovem
hierarchy, and I said to him: Why are
you so very much opposed to Hum
phrey? After all, his ideological rating,
as handed down by the Americans for
Democratic Action on the basis of his
lifelong record, is 97, which is higher
even than McGovern’s 92. Ahh—said
the young man quick-wittedly— but the
record in question was earned during
the period that Senator Humphrey was
a senator, mostly before he took the
Vice Presidency in 1964. We hate him
for the positions he took while he was
Vice President.
This of course has to mean the
position that Humphrey took on the
Vietnam war, since on all domestic
matters, Lyndon Johnson was an
exemplary liberal. So I said, but isn’t it
to be expected that a Vice President
takes the same position as the
President? That has been the case since
the great disengagement of Vice
President Calhoun from President
Jackson Well, said the youth, but the
fact of it is that Humphrey took
Johnson’s positions enthusiastically.
Well, I said, Humphrey takes every
position enthusiastically—it is his
mode. One could hardly stand up before
a crowd as Vice President to President
Johnson and speak listlessly one’s
orisons to President Johnson’s policies.
No, the thing of it is that Hubert
Humphrey opposes George McGovern,
and in the New Politics that isn’t
as simple as that Humphrey’s
emphases are different from
McGovern’s. What it is, is sacrilege.
McGovernism is something of a
religion, and the test in the days ahead
will be whether the McGovern shock
troops can move with sufficient tact.
It will have to a cultivated tact. It
will not, that is to say, come
naturally. Because they do not feel
it naturally. The young man in question
told me that he would desert the
Democratic Party rather than back
Humphrey, in the event the Convention
chose him. Note the interesting failure
to meditate the symmetry. The
distance between McGovern and
Humphrey is no greater than the
distance between Humphrey and
McGovern. Yet although they expect
that Humphrey people will work for
McGovern they would not make a
commitment the other way around.
The reason is quite simple: they are
right, the others are wrong. It is to be
expected that the heathens will work
for the saints if the saints are con
firmed. It is not in prospect, failing
that, that the saints would turn to the
cause of the heathens.
Now George McGovern, not
withstanding the great seismic fault in
his temperament revealed the week in
which the Credentials Committee
applied to California the democratist
principles of George McGovern, knows
how to be conciliatory. And he is going
to have to do a lot of that kind of thing in
order to conceal from the mass of
Democratic voters the priggishness,
the ethical chauvinism, of his followers.
It is off-putting to be asked to vote for
McGovern as a religious exercise. It is
one thing to reduce the Humphrey
Democrat by appealing to his party
loyalty or t6 his disapproval of Richard
Nixon. It is something else to try to
coopt him into a new religious order.
I
Letters
Trlrphones
On Juno 30 the* Housing Department and
the telephone company implemented a
decision to discontinue off-campus phone
service to the* phones located on each floor
of the dorms The* main rease>n behind the
action, rumor has it, is that too many
collect calls were being ae*cepted by the
dorm re*side*nts, ceisting the* University
large* amounts on its phone* bill
The* floor pheme*s now may only be use*d
for on-campus communication. For off
campus calls (local e*alls included) a pay
phone is located on the* first floor of e*aeh
hall This plume must be* use*d for beith
making and re*e*e*iving local calls, and in
tin* cast of Hamilton at le*ast, is locate*d in a
closet in the* first floor lounge*
This ne*w phone* service (disservice)
raise's the following questions and con
cerns 1) It is unfair that, while residents
of Hamilton must pay to make loe*al off
campus e*alls, those* peeiplc in Carson do
not (their plume se*rvie*e was nert cut on the
:wth). 2) It is an unjust e*xponse* to have to
pay e*ve*ry time* you want to call a friend or
te*ae*he*r, who may very well live within
r
blocks of the school 3) Because there are
not phones on every floor that are
equipped to receive outside calls, those
people living on the upper floors of the
dorms are not getting their calls or
messages of the calls, because people
won’t come up to find you. And they
shouldn't have to. 4) It does not seem that
calling out has anything to do with
receiving and accepting collect calls. The
University would be in no danger of un
wanted phone bills if it allowed students to
be able to make calls from their floor.
Residents would at least like a pay
phone on every floor so we can get calls
that have been made to us. This is
especially necessary in cases of
emergencies or long distance calls.
Other schools in the state have gotten
around the collect call problem by in
stalling Centrex switchboards with trained
operators to weed out collect calls, and
still make phone service available to all
floors It seems unreasonable to think that
one pay phone per dorm, located in a closet
on the first floor is adequate to the needs of
dorm residents. It also seems unfair, that
while some students must make do with
that limited phone service, others enjoy
full service from phones on every floor at
no cost.
Bob Schatz
Boynton-Hamilton
and 41 co-signers
Greater knowledge
The front-page story, “Speaker Claims
Women Ignored” t June 26), which has just
been called to my attention, certainly
shows the need for greater knowledge of
the role of women in American history and
society.
The anonymous author—possibly a
“male chauvinist pig?”—managed to
make both himself and the speaker, Isabel
Welsh, appear very ignorant. Welsh may
have actually been responsible for some of
the errors—it is impossible to say -but,
even if so, an adequately informed jour
nalist would not have permitted some of
them to get into print.
Welsh is quoted as saying that “Anne
Hutchins" (sic) was “expelled from the
Massachusetts Bay Colony for political
f
I F
'WELL, SO FAR, SO OOOD . . .
..JINP AllflWS
heterodoxy” and also that she was “a
witch.” Hutchinson was indeed exiled in
1637 but for the religious heterodoxy of
claiming that God spoke to her “by an
immediate voice” rather than for political
errors. The controversy over her teaching
did, to be sure, result in a political
cleavage. To say that she was “a witch” is
nonsense. Not even her worst enemies so
called her.
Reference was also made to “the
Grimpy sisters” (sic), presumably Sarah
and Angelina Grimke, abolitionists and
pioneer advocates of women’s rights. If
uncertain as to the pronunciation or
spelling the speaker or writer should have
checked.
Welsh was also quoted as saying:
“Women were not allowed to speak in
public.” But such a statement is
meaningless unless it is specified when,
where, and by whom women—what
women?—were “not allowed” to do thus
and so. Quaker women. Sojourner Truth, |
Carry A. Nation, Emma Goldman, and
many other women mentioned and un
mentioned certainly did “speak in public.”
Kenneth W. Porter
Professor emeritus of history
Re: DOGS
I approached the young woman whose
dog, I had been told, had recently killed a
squirrel on campus and, wanting to make
certain she knew of this act mentioned it to
her.
Her reply was that she was “rather
proud of him, considering that he’d been
chasing squirrels for two years.”
1 made some remarks about how it
would be too bad when all the proud dog
owners had let their animals run loose, in
open violation of the law, until all the
squirrels were killed. She made no reply,
apparently contemplating how her pride
will grow when her "pet" kills again.
It is beyond my comprehension why the
administration allows this situation to
continue. Eighteen dog bites (reported)
Spring term and no one but the Emerald
seems to give a damn.
If the county Animal Control officers are
too busy rounding up dogs in rural areas, it
is the duty of the University authorities to
do something about the problem
Until they do. prudent people on campus
can only stay away from the dogs and
WATCH' THEIR STEP!!
Jim Higgins
Junior, t: gush