Transcript

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{word} = hard to understand, might be this

...dates of America -- from 1800 to today, then perhaps you would realize. This is -- cannot be a course simply in American history.

I happened to fly here two days ago via the polar roa- -- route, from Germany, England, to Frobisher Bay, and then down here. Not even touching New England. And you see that part of the United States had been extrapolated from this polar route, and Los Angeles is somewhere in the world. Not in the United States only. And I want you to understand that this is quite serious business. You see it from the Berlin issue in foreign policies. We have overlapping frontiers today, interpenetrating political bodies. And this is absolute nonsense and reactionary to think that Los Angeles is just a part of the United States. It -- things are much more complicated. You can -- have only to think of Hollywood as the center of spiritual infection for the rest of {the world}.

This is then a serious question: what is social in such a history of the United States of America after 1800 to this day? And I tell you that this is very questionable in the year of the Lord 1959. Again, may I draw on my recent experience? I had to go Europe to deliver a -- give a speech on this problem of nation and society, and -- to enlist the interests of the European peoples in a worldwide service. And you run into this snag there as much as you do here at times at this moment more in the United States even than Europe--where the nations have been defeated, and are quite open to doubt about their nationa- -- nationalism--the question, whether such a worldwide service should be supported by the governments of the world, by their national institutions, by the Congress in this country, or the war department or some other department, or whether it should be the free enterprise of individual groups free from the taint of nationalism and of the state. And so we had a tremendous debate on this question: What is social, and what is political? And there were two people agreeing on this topic. At least I got the pot boiling, and I hope it will boil over. And it was very exciting.

This isn't the whole story. I was only talking there to the western world, to one-half of the globe, that is. But the other half, as you know, is sulking in their tents, or grinning in their tents, as you like to interpret Mr. Khrushchev's bile. And -- Mr. Khrushchev, as you know, is pretending that he is founding the great society, that's the -- content of the world revolution. Yet, to our point of view, and our way of looking at things, he has been building up a super state. And so the story of the Uni- -- of the -- Russia in the last 40 years would come under the heading, "Political History of Soviet Russia," wouldn't it? And you wouldn't think that this is -- wrong at all. That's the story of Stalin, and Lenin,

and the government, and the gov- -- governing party, and -- you see, and the various interesting murders that occurred, et cetera.

Now is this social history? So if you are asked by somebody, how would a social history of Russia look at this moment, you would be at a loss to distinguish between the political history and the social history. And you therefore would say, "Well, that's all just words, verbiage. There is no distinction--really, seriously--between society and government." Now, if this is so, I have nothing to offer, because there are courses on constitutional history in this -- in this college offered to you, and political history. American history, straight. And so what's left to us here?

It seems to me that this rather modern and recent course of social history of the United States cannot blink the fact that we are under scrutiny by the whole world, what we mean by "social." And that if the Russians go from the theory of a great society into the practice of a super state, we may feel provoked to say that we perhaps have in theory just democracy, and politics, and government, but that in practice, we may be moving toward the great society. So that theory and practice on both sides of this strange split -- strangely split globe would move in opposite directions. The Russians tha- -- saying theoretically, you see, "We are building the great society," but really ruling, as you know, by hardfisted law and police force, the military power. We, however, whether you look at foreign aid, or whether you look at an exchange program, or whether you look at the way of the curriculum which -- which we are trying to enlarge, or whether you look at the -- Mr. Stevenson traveling to Russia, or Mr. Lippmann, we obviously are trying to find some place for social activity outside the negotiations of state departments, you see. That's a very serious business. Is Mr. Dulles the only ambassador of good will of the western world, toward the -- to Moscow? Or are there others? Or are there other ways of integration and implicating the whole world into some activities which are neither Russian nor Americans?

So I beg you to understand that I'm talking of the social history of America not as a local, patriotic issue between eastern -- New England and western states, where of course the Mormons, and the Emily McPherson hel- -- hold the limelight, but that it is very serious question whether we could offer to the rest of the world, some common feeling, and some common program, and some common future, by not insisting on our nationality, and on our statehood, and on our government, and the principle of government by actively developing a model case or a -- so to speak, a first model of a society at large which is not divided by statehood, and by war, and by frontiers, and by military power.

This is very open to question. And I -- this morning I thought I should put before you the seriousness of the use of the word "social," because I think noth-

ing has weakened the American good conscience about the future so much as the complete dilution of this term. Nobody knows what is meant by the word "social," today. And I insist that I shall use it as dynamite, as a constant controversial question between the East and the West. What they call "society," and what we call "society," is put to the test today. And therefore, the social history of the United States can only be a sampling of a social order that is at this moment spreading all over the globe, one way or another.

That's the first point I wanted to make: the ambiguity of the term "social." I know I haven't cleared it up, completely, but this is the content of the course. The second thing is, gentlemen--and ladies, pardon me--that I'm going to treat the social history of the United States since 1800 as the beginning of the future. That is, I'm not interested in what happened, except that I want to know what of the -- those happenings can be carried on into the future, and what has to be eliminated or left behind as obsolete and dated.

Now it isn't customary to begin history with an understanding of what we expect from the future. And I think this has been too bad. It was always implicit in any decent history book down to 1900. Whether you take Henry Cabot Lodge's history of the -- or Parkman's, even, Conquest of the Great West, but especially Bancroft, or any one of the historians of the 19th century, you could always smell that they knew where the people were going, and what they had to support, and in which way they had to help the future by writing the history of the past. All great historians of the 19th century have done this. And now we have no future, and we have no historians.

And that's very serious business, gentlemen. A country has as much past as it has future, and has exactly as much future as it has past. But tomorrow is not the future. Tomorrow is automatic. The future is only something in which we can believe, as salubrious, necessary, desirable, and depending on our own effort. Otherwise we aren't interested. Anything that comes about automatic, I'm not interested in at all for historians, or for you, as students of history.

I once tried something. And the dean of my college -- and we had suppered together and -- had dinner together, and he was leading Mrs. -- my Mrs. to the dinner table. And so he began talking: "How could your husband do such a thing? It's against the trend."

And so she said, "That's why he's doing it." And so he didn't talk the whole evening with her any longer.

Now history is not for those automats. And it's no use to the -- for this gentleman to read history. Because history is selective, gentlemen. Will you take

this down? It's important for you, I think, because you don't find this term today, except in Darwinism, in -- in zoology. Everybody knows that nature is selective. But in society, we s- -- have to be -- seem to be complete. The greatest foolishness is also called an historical fact. Well, it's something to be buried, but not to be told in history. History consists of those things that have to be told, lest they be forgotten. And they -- those things which cannot -- must not be forgotten are those which we still need to carry into the future. Very simple. Without an agreement about you -- the future, ladies and gentlemen, I'm afraid we have nothing to talk to each other. And wh- -- that's why most people today have nothing to talk to each other, especially husband and wife. They have to sit then before a -- before a substitute for talking about the future, which is called television.

Gentlemen--no, ladies and gentlemen, pardon me--as soon as you abolish the future as something to be saved by selection, the very minute you go crazy. And I'll give you an example of the seriousness of our social evil at this moment, how people really at this moment are going crazy in the United States and elsewhere, too.

I was sitting in my living room eight weeks ago. In bursts a lady who is a famous announcer in this country. And she said, "What am I going to do? My sponsor demands that I tell the listening public over the ra- -- over the radio that unless the American public buys a million sets of television during the next six months, 1 million workers will be -- have to be fired, there will be a recession, and Communism then is inevitable."

[tape interruption]

But you can see immediately. I think I have put the finger right on the -- on the wound where today it should hurt you most. You have nothing to answer to the sponsor. I go around in this country and say, "This is nonsense. This is lunacy."

And they said, "But what else could he say? He has to try to sell more television sets than are needed. And he has to talk people into buying these sets. And that's his duty, and that's industry, and that's -- that's prosperity."

If this is so, gentlemen, again, any course in social history of the United States of America would land us all in a lunatic asylum. And as soon as you limit the future to those partial issues of making the television industry prosperous, and us their victims -- as soon as you allow this to happen, there is no future for the human race within this part of the world. And obviously, we are not only threatened by this. We are threatened by the -- you see, "Use more milk," "Use

more cream," "Use more processed cheese," I don't know what. And every -- every branch today of life establishes itself, you see, as on the increase, and if you don't support its increase, we are doomed. Isn't that so?

And probably the midwives of this country also will form association and tell us that as -- if not every family now only has twins, then we are lost, which is not more stupid than saying that everybody has to have two television sets. It's exactly the same principle, isn't it?

Now, we all listen to this, and as long as grownup people only listen to this stuff it might not be dangerous. But obviously if the young seriously have to listen to these sponsors, because otherwise they don't get the meat of the -- of the broadcast, you see, this is very serious, because you allow them to have this stupidity, this nonsense percolate and percolate into very virgin ears, and there is nothing to replace it, because the future in this country is considered to come about automatically.

When you read the Examiner--Los Angeles or Califor- -- or San Francisco, it makes no difference--they tell you about the future as something that just happened by the birth rate, and just by the expansion, you see, of people. They figure out how this country will look like in 2000, you see. I just was told by that -- by that time, you would have 10-story parking places. So it would take you, you see, a full hour to come into this classroom.

Maybe that this is so, but this is not the future, what I mean by "future." This may happen or may not happen. I'm quite indifferent to this, you see. You should be indifferent, too. It's not interesting. It is nothing that has been selected. It has nothing by -- for which people have sacrificed. It is something that has to be done administratively. And administration is necessary, but it isn't first-rate, you see, because administration doesn't set new goals. The future comes only about as long as you and I develop the faculty of changing our direction. Anybody who has to go into a certain direction, you see, has no future. He just prolongs the past. That's what the -- and that's why you all are under this black magic of physics. In physics, of course, when a ball is going in one direction, it will proceed into the same direction, the stratosphere, you see. That's why we can reach the moon. And that's why the moon and the -- and the people who go into the stratosphere are dead souls. They have no souls, because the soul is the strange power in us to say, "Stop this nonsense. Go elsewhere. Do -- do something different."

If -- long as you don't develop this art of changing direction, there is no future that is of any importance. Then you can, of course, calculate, you see, what's going to happen, because it's -- got started 500 years ago, and so on. But

look at -- 500 years ago, we began to print books. Now they are -- I'm under scrutiny whether I shouldn't have instead only tape recording, you see, and only listening to -- to oral music, or to oral books. And why should we print books anymore? Something new has happened, you see, and you have to change direction. Imagine what it would mean if we would all go illiterate, because we now want to listen only, and not to write anymore. It could happen, you see. We are on the way out with books, I think.

What I have to say at this -- this morning is: I couldn't talk to you -- I wouldn't start in with the history of the United States in a -- and its society unless I -- we would be clear that there is for all of us a common future. This common future must contain two elements, I think, on which we could agree. One: that in this future, despite the tremendous ballyhoo of people--millions and billions and so--the future would still have to contain institutions by which we are able to change direction together. That's not so easy, you see. Usually -- think of a boy who has to elope, or has to go away, break with his parents, because he doesn't share their convictions -- for the time being. There is no institution then within this family by which parents and children can change their mind together. One changes direction. The other stays behind, you see. There's a break-off of relations. And great hardship is -- can ensue if the parents and the children do not later on recover this sense of unity, you see, over their dissent. Today most young people don't care. They say the ch- -- parents have to come around, anyway. And I don't have anything to do to convince them.

Well, I think there are as many divorces made by this breaking away from their parents as can -- can possibly be made. Most divorces have their reason in the older -- in their -- the relation of these two people to the older generation. It's not -- it's not a sex problem to stay married, gentlemen. But it's a way of honoring peace, and knowing what is more, worth more, you see: sex relations or peace? And you can't marry in your own generation if you're -- haven't peace of mind with the older generation. But this is an institution to change in a whole group one's mind, because obviously the parents have to change their mind, if they see this tremendous boy whom this girl happens to have selected, you see. And the -- the girl has to understand that the parents try to tell her to wait, and not to marry at 19 an -- an 18-year-old boy.

Gentlemen, this is -- means the power to change direction. And I think our society at this moment is losing it, rapidly. We can go in one direction, everybody in his. But to change direction is something much more difficult. You see it in the South, with massive resistance and so on. It is much more difficult to change direction than it is for the preachers in the North to preach one direction which they have preached now since 18- -- since abolitionism, you -- you see, and the opposite people in the South to preach their direction, which they also have

preached since 1830. And just no fruit in this, you see. That's not a way of changing direction for either of the two groups. Isn't that -- simple?

It's just carrying on the fight from 1830. You don't agree?

(I like to reserve my judgment.)

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This is the first point, gentlemen. There is no free future for mankind if there is no power than -- except automation, except development, except evolution, except the statistics that tell you that America will have 200 million people by 1975. That's not an historical fact, because it has nothing to do with changing of direction. And history is not the powers of nature, like the Niagara Falls. It's not -- just water running down the hill.

If -- I can prove this to you very simply. If you come to a southern village today, where the sharecroppers and the white man are still in the same predicament they were in 1865, you would say nothing has happened. They are out of history. They are just relics of the past, you see. They are not in the stream of events. They have lost the power to be historical beings. They have just preg- -- you see, impregnated, and coined, and characterized by catastrophe, you see. And now they are there. Go to Spain, and you can who- -- find a whole nation that has just lost and left history. Great tragedy, you see. For the last 200 years, every event in Spain has moved them farrer away from the mainstream of history. It is not in history. The civil war was another attempt to get it back into the stream of history. And again, it's just standing pat. There is no superstition in Spain which you don't find preserved from fear of -- from history.

Now this can happen to a Christian nation. And this can happen, you see, to a European nation. And therefore, Spain I think is a very important example of the fact that by just living in a certain year, 1959, that doesn't mean you are inside history. You must share the common future of mankind, and you must have the power to select the direction. Now Mr. Franco, you see, is a good example, a case in point. He cannot change the direction. I mean, the infiltration of Church and state into one thing, and so on, he hasn't been able to -- to move in any one direction. He has just frozen out the situation. Who has been to Spain? Well, I think you -- you will understand what I'm talking about. Isn't that right?

The American effort now to build bases there, so to speak, is the one social event, and the tourist trade. And that's of course enough to kill anybody's soul.

So these countries, you see, which are now Exhibit A for the travel agencies, are even murdered more historically by the tourists, because they want to keep the pope in the Vatican, and Mr. Franco in power, and the Alhambra in Grenada, and the wine of Ca- -- Malaga, et cetera. And woe to a nation that moves out from under the presuppositions of the American traveler. Yes. He has paid for it -- to see the -- the dirndl, you see, and to see the man wearing the green hat there, and the naked knees. And what is he going to do if these people modernize their ways of life, you see? So the travel agencies are now special institutions for the petrified forests of Europe.

Now please look around and ask yourself, "Who is in history? Who is still active? Who is still creatively able to change his direction?" You'll find very few people. Very few. You all act by prejudice, superstition, habit, routine, somebody else tells you so. And if you -- investigate our prejudices, our -- instincts, they are all planted into us some hundred years ago, and we carry them on. We don't know, you see. Look at this whole problem of how independent every individual has to be, how happy he has to be made in school. Perhaps he has to be made unhappy. How do we know? Change direction. If you cultivate this power, you see, to -- to be free from all your directions at any one given moment, because they make other people or yourself suffer too much, then you have the part in the formation of the future; otherwise not.

This is then, gentlemen, I think the agreement to which we have to come: that it is incredibly difficult to implant into the future an order of society by which people can change direction together. Because what does it help me that if I wanted to -- to change direction, I'm teaching the teacher. If I have no students who want to listen to this unpopular music, you see, I'm just out of business. Therefore, it's -- it is -- doesn't -- it isn't enough that I have a different idea, that I'm telling you now what I'm trying to tell you. I have to be acknowledged; I have to be free to do this; I have to be appointed. The whole society must want people who can change directions. And if you have a conformist society in which everybody says, "But you must; it's against the trend," you see, then I'll just have to go to the Aleutians.

That's I think the only place where nobody wants to live at this moment.

The second thing is, gentlemen, that the ladies must come with us. That is, while we are changing directions, the peace of society has to be -- kept. It is impossible that old people and young people should see eye to eye. You see, the old people change, and the young people imitate. And you think the opposite. You think that because you are young, you are modern; and because I am old, I am obsolete. If I am obsolete -- in as far as I am obsolete, you are obsolete, too, because you are just carrying out this, what we have, so to speak, done. You are

just an -- all -- all kind of grooves, examinations, courses, which you haven't set up, but which mold you now, you see. But if you come to think of it, the -- the second heresy which has abolished the future of mankind at this moment, to a large extent in the whole western world, is the idea that young people are automatically more advanced than old people. That's what you all believe. But it is wrong. It is not true. You play with everything you find in life, try it, you experiment with it. That's right. But you have not the power to change direction. You can as -- I say, break away from your parents, for example. But you cannot influence the law that still makes these people hold the property, and make you -- put you into debt. Ja?

(Isn't there a -- a point of increasing commitment that -- that age brings on, where a young person doesn't have --)

Pardon me?

(-- a burden of commitment, that a young person doesn't have, yet, the choices that he hasn't made, yet, that becomes inextricable in the society as he progresses?)

Well -- I -- you, so to speak, hasten my answer -- or my solution to this problem. I think only that as long as you think that younger people are automatically more modern than older people, you again underrate the -- the -- the effort that history demands from men in society, or in the nation. I'm very glad to come back to this at another occasion, this relation of young and old. I think that neither being young nor being old has anything to do with the historical role. I would negate both, you see. You can it -- live in Florida, and play bridge, and be out of history, you see; and you can be in high school and to the University of California and be out of history. It's -- are two occupations, you see. And it's both like being a lemon.

It is -- this is not what is meant by, you see, the effort. If you would have to go to war, and have to decide whether you are a conscientious objector, or -- or serve the -- your country, you see, you would be in history. Any soldier is--especially a veteran, or especially a man who lies down his life for his bro- -- brother, and for the nation--he is in history whether he likes it or not. His death makes him into somebody who has done something for the future of the human race, one way or another. That is, gentlemen, history is serious business. And it is not reached by examinations, and it isn't reached by playing at sports, or playing bridge, or by fraternities or sororities. This is just still all a game. That's not real. -- Serious history always only begins when a man sticks his neck out and says, "This is so, and if you don't like it, you can take my life, or I will go to prison." There's no history for any cheaper price than the loss of your life, eventually.

You cannot have any future -- and this is, I think, the greatest heresy of Los Angeles, Southern California, that life is here so beautiful that you can forget this. The aircraft industry should remind you that it isn't. And the Death Valley should. And all the -- the catastrophes across the border in Mexico, that real history has never been allowed to -- so to speak, to shape human destiny unless somebody was willing to pay the price of his life for it. And if it is the Wright brothers, who risked certainly their life, you see, when they went up in a plane, and now you couldn't think of the universe unless some people had been so foolish to break their neck in such a -- a cheap machine of the beginnings of this new craft.

I'm quite serious, gentlemen, that our -- the understanding with most human beings with this world is very difficult, because they laugh when you say this to them. They say they -- "That's not necessary. Death is not a part of history." Gentlemen, history is only the -- the sum of those things for which people have laid down their lives. There is nothing else in history that can remain. And nothing has ever been bought at a cheaper price. And that's very disagreeable to you. Because, as you know, even childbirth has now been made in -- arranged in such a manner that mothers don't have to realize that they do risk their lives when they give birth to a child. They certainly do risk their youth, they risk their health, they risk their beauty. And that's in order, because new life cannot be begotten without this serious investment of resolution. And that's -- you know there has been this movement underfoot to make women experience this event consciously, because it -- it's that which makes them grow up. You have to -- to tie two and two to- -- together. What women do in the physical realm, quite naturally, that they give life to a next generation by stepping back into their generation, by becoming older, you see, by being not -- no longer the youngest, that is, of course, true for the male, too. We men become historical beings if there is something for which we are willing to stand up and to be called. And as you know, you have the eternal playboy now as the rule, who says, "I'll never be caught. I haven't said anything."

I once talked to the commissioner of education of this big nation, in Washington, member of the cabinet. And we had a talk about what education was, and what a civilized person is, what a citizen is. And I said a citizen is a man who, when a city has been burned down or destroyed, or a government -- that he can establish it again.

And he said, "No. A citizen is a man who's profitably employed."

And we had quite an argument. I think you were even present, Page. And he came around. He saw the point, and saw that he had only a childish definition of a man, you see. A man who is profitably employed, it's a man who can be

bought. That's not an historical human being. He cannot change direction, because he has to do what he's paid for.

Then the man came to my house, had tea with me and said, "You are absolutely right. But if you quote me, I shall deny it."

Now, I would say that we move in a -- in a painted desert in which most people say -- think or say the same thing, you see. They have their ideas, their wonderful revolutionaries' idea, but at the point of danger, at the moment of danger, they don't want to be quoted. And I think it's no exaggeration.

And from there, you will see that social history is a history of the few, changing direction for the many; because only those change direction who are willing to invest their whole existence, honor, career, fortune, even their beloved ones into this decision that this has to be selected, this has to be made -- reinsured, reinforced, or brought in for the first time.

And that's why I -- I -- I say this to obviate your dream of a social history which works by statistics. I cannot see that social history comes about because we have 20 times as many automobiles. So if you want to hear these wonderful dreams of bigger and better elephants in America, don't turn to me. I'm interested in the fact that the small car is coming in at this moment, you see. That's changing direction, isn't it? And that's an interesting part of social history. But the number of cars sold every year, I would go to the economist for this. Don't come to me.

Because we have not to do with the mere increase in quantities. But we have to do with the invention of new qualities, the creation of new qualities, because any change of direction is only possible by developing a new quality. Isn't that -- very simple? It's never a quantitative move.

I say this, because obviously at this moment, the whole West has succumbed to the temptation to confuse social with quantitative thinking, with mass thinking, with -- with figures, with the turnover at the stock exchange every day. This has nothing to do with social. I defy this. This is necessary. That has to do with commodities. It has to do with money. It's all very important to have the money. But you don't get -- an integrated society which is able to keep us out of inflation, for example, by quantitative thinking, but the quality of the citizens who don't want to cheat each other if they say, "We can't have inflation." That's a decision of a quality in your own mind. And I, who have been through three inflations in my life, can only tell you that to inflate the government currency means to abolish government. You don't know this. And you play at this moment -- the economists play around with inflation. But what you do is you

undermine the authority of the -- your government. And after inflation, you don't have a -- democracy left. The great danger for democracy is today inflation, and not all the other problems which are mentioned in this -- in this connection. Why? Because inflation means that the government is cheating. And anybody who is cheating at one point is no longer creditable in any other direction, you see. If your money, you see, is not upheld by the government--I assure you, this has been the experience of all the nations of Europe, you see--the government goes down the drain, because since the currency is backed by the word of the government, you see, the word of the government plea- -- proves to be no good. You can see this from the Third -- Fourth Republic in France, where the issue always has been inflation for the last 10 years, and where no government had authority; and the first step of the new government, that is, an authoritarian government is, you see, to open the frontiers, to let the currency be free, and so to speak, measured, you see, and compared to the other currencies for the first time genuinely, and thereby prove that they are, you see, upholding their word, that they mean what they say, and say what they mean. And this de Gaulle currency reform is a very simple test for the fact that a government has to be honest in every direction. You cannot be half, you see, cheating, and half honest. And you cannot put a man into jail for murder if you yourself have lied to your constituency, you see, by -- by watering down the currency. You cannot. Everybody -- he doesn't happen to know the discrepancy, but he feels it, you see. It smells. If the ladies weren't here, I would say it stinks.

Now again, you see how difficult it is to change direction, because today in this country, there is -- are many advocates of changing direction in the economy of this country by this ridiculous means of inflation. That is, that's not a change of direction. That's an evasion of the issue. Why? Because the group that changes direction has to stay loyal to each other. The -- the historical problem of the change of direction means solidarity.

This word "solidarity" has been -- come out of use a little bit, I feel--or perhaps never has been very much loved by the liberals -- in this country--but the workers in Europe always use this problem -- this word "solidarity" to say that the skilled worker, and the unemployed, and the unskilled worker have to be -- to show solidarity, although on the surface of things, they have really divergent interests. You see, a worker who is a skilled man is not interested really in the improvement of the situation of the unskilled worker at all. Because it means that a man who then introduces machinery, and get rid of the skilled worker, and has more unskilled workers, so he's working against his own interest, if he protects the unskilled workers. And I have seen situations in which the people in um- -- employment, just loathe the sight of an unemployed, because he threatens their existence by undercutting their -- their position, you see. You have 10 unemployed people for one salaried person; obviously this person feels

that they will, you see, perhaps replace him at a cheaper rate. This happened here in this country in 19- -- between 1929 and 1933.

And solidarity, gentlemen, is a virtue that is not natural, that has to be trained into people. And as you know, the problem then of our future is how to change our direction without abandoning the existing solidarities with people who, by this change, may have to fee- -- have to -- may feel relinquished, abandoned, you see, otherwise. It would be easy to change direction, like the radicals in 1865 here in this country, who say, you see, "We don't care for the surviving of the white man in the South at all." That's what we call the radical, the carpet bagger, you see. We just take care now of the Negro problem in the South, and the white man has just to be wiped out, or forgotten. Leave the country. You see, this is an unsolved problem to this day. The southerners say, "The north- -- northerners show no solidarity with the -- with -- our -- with us," you see. And of course, the Negro can say that the white man in the South has rid himself of any solidarity with him.

Wherever you have a social problem, you have these two things. New direction has to be possible. Otherwise man becomes an animal, a derelict -- an old { } left of life. And as I told you, it hasn't yet been found out whether there aren't parts of the United States in -- I know some in the Virginia hills, or in the -- Kentucky, where there is no history, where people are just moving in vicious circles. I dare say that there are many places on this globe who do -- who --look as parts of humanity and who just are out of any current of historical growth, or change. Many more than you think. Very many saints have felt that God was like a thunderstorm, and went here and there--the -- the spirit, you see--and then He leaves those dead on the ground who haven't listened, who haven't obeyed His orders. You just have to think of the red Indians, who in part are now out -- they're out of history. They are wards of the government. As long as they were, there was still hope. Now they are no longer wards of the government, and since they are nobody's wards, they are also nobody.

The whole problem of the underdeveloped countries, gentlemen, the whole problem of the -- of the ancient races, the same as with the old -- the ancient animals, with the elephant and the tiger, they are on the way out if there is not found a way of con- -- connecting them again with us, even by the administration of the New York zoo. You have to keep alive those ani- -- those animals. The same is true of na- -- of national groups, you see, of gypsies, of {Bororos} at the Amazonas River, or whatever it is. It's a very serious question. You are all ben- -- I think benighted, because you believe that the light of reason keeps every group on this globe historically fit and alive. That isn't so. Reason is just as unreasonable as my announcer's sponsor, you see. Reason says, you see, "Go crazy," or "Make other people go crazy." To change direction in solidarity, on

this, you and I will have to agree before you believe my strange so- -- social history of the United States.

Now some technicalities before we end. I gave you three books. I took the cheapest. I was considering your social problem. This is a minimum. Anybody who is interested in history will read, I think, endlessly. And don't think that these assignments, or this demand of mine to buy, or to own these books really covers the ground. But I thought they might bring you in contact with some three men whose social outlook itself is a part of the historical growth of this country. As I say, it's a very minimum, only because they are available in the pocket books -- here in paper backs there -- did I select them. One is Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and of Decay, and that's Vintage Book, K22. Then there is our friend, James Fenimore Cooper, whom you probably know from The Last of the Mohicans. By the way, who has not read The Last of the Mohicans? Be honest. Gentlemen, you are out of history. Well, this is the other side of Cooper, the social reformer. And it gives you an idea of what the people of this country expected of the future, 130 years ago, or 120 years ago. That's why it is -- I think it's important. James Fenimore Cooper, Vintage Book K26. It's called The American Democrat. That's the volume here. And the -- last is Pocket Books 195, the Short History of the United States, by Nevins and Commager. NevinsCommager. Most of you probably know the book from other courses, but I couldn't help feeling that you should have -- some -- railing to go with us and to keep us from falling into the bottomless pit of ignorance. Nevins-Commager, Pocket Books 195. For the time being, these are -- I -- I want you to have these books, to read them all, and be acquainted with them in the next four weeks. As I go along, I will recommend other books. But this I thought -- think -- I thought I should make assignment right away. Thank you.

Here, everybody perhaps who passes out -- here, takes with him here this undertaker's card.