Transcript
{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this
(Now, let's see).
[tape interruption]
...a unique feature, a unique feature, as I say, of the first 50 years of this country's political existence, we said has been its complete transformation from a people into an organized public. It is perhaps interesting for you to note that the very word "organization" is not older than 1780, and is therefore absolutely contemporary with America's independent life. "To organize" means to make an organism. And of course, if you make organisms, they are artificial, indeed. And therefore, they have all the signs of the -- what you find in -- our friend Feni- -- James Fenimore Cooper's American Democrat: this transformation of people into a public, everybody a mind in his own right, but nothing -- but a mind, and therefore terribly fickle.
On the other hand, if you act as a mind, as an individual--as it is called very often--as an independent, then you are of course able to join any number of causes. And as you know, in this country there are innumerable causes. I put them -- the main ones of the first half of the 19th century here once more, because I said already--and this we will have to follow up today for feminism, the most important of all these movements--that they -- not one of them has achieved its true goal. Pacifis- -- -ism has led to World War II; Prohibition has led to the repeal and to wahr- -- true orgies of drinking. There's more drinking, not less drinking, now than before Prohibition in this country. Abolition has -- one cannot say that Abolition has saved the South, as Little Rock bears out. And vegetarianism, I -- told you again, is a mental attitude which does not solve our problem of artificial food.
Since however, the question of women's rights in this country is of course the determinant for the character of America, for its membership in a -- mankind which produces different types of humanity, it is today my -- shall be my endeavor to go a little more carefully at work, in the movement of feminists.
I first of all would like to tell you that I shall ask you in -- for -- in the finals to know something of one of the heroes of -- of these fi- -- five movements. And you may take your paper -- I shall ask a question about the life, biography, contribution, character of one of the four following women -- leading women in this country. The oldest one is Lucretia Mott, M-o-t-t. The next is Lucy S- -- Blackwell Stone. Lucy Blackwell Stone. The third is Elizabeth Cady Stanton. And the youngest one is Susan -- Susan B. Anthony.
Now I take it that all the ladies of course know the lives of these ladies very -- women very well. But I can't expect it from the boys. So just the same, even the male in this country now is of course -- has to -- has to look at the great models in womanhood in this country. Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Lucy S- -- Blackwell Stone.
The women's movement in this country is already foreshadowed in the new relation of the male--the men in this country--to their country. And I may not have convinced you, but I have tried to suggest that man's relation to this country is the opposite from Europe, because the country is the daughter- and not the motherland. That is, not the fatherland, either. But it's a country to be endowed.
My friend Page Smith showed me the other day the volume of endowed foundations in this country. There are 8,000 of them, for any purpose in the world. That is, men have la- -- made wills in which they have endowed this country, for any problem to be solved. You take this all for granted. But it isn't. It's a unique situation that people have s- -- set aside for the future not just nonsensical wills--as old ladies who give it for the -- so that cats may not have to be executed--but these 8,000 foundations are serious business. You and I, we couldn't live in America without it. The 8,000 represent the only -- the only--now ma- -- mark you well; I am saying this with all consideration, and I know what I'm saying--the only place for the arts and the sciences in which they are treated as they should be treated, as the treasure around beauty -- the beauty of the young women, who need the arts and -- to be decorated. And you always think of the arts in the abstract as something highfalutin. But any woman has to be adorned. And all -- all art begins simply with the music for -- of the wedding march, and with the flowers for the {corslip}, and it begins with the simplest adornment of beauty. And therefore, these foundations make room for something for which the mo- -- the American businessman and the American city, and the American village just have no place: beauty, leisure, you see, the arts. That which is useless, and which boasts of being useless.
If you are asked, "What's the use of the arts?" you can only answer -- give back the famous answer which was given here by a desperado when he was asked such a silly question: "What is the use of a newborn child?" There is no use of a newborn child, you see. Creative things are in themselves meaningful. Never ask, "What's the use of science?" or "What's the use of the arts?" If you try to answer it, you already have given the devil the little finger. And this is now going on. People try to prove that they are useful. They aren't useful, because they are the ends. Useful can only be means. If you are useful, you are instrumental. And then you are pragmatic, and then you live for somebody else. Not one of you -- is in this -- his highest existence justified by -- because he is an
instrument for -- for something useful.
I think I told you the story of my experience in education, that a man -- citizen was the man who was profitably employed. Didn't I tell you the story here? You see?
No. A citizen is a ma- -- a man, you see, who can go beyond himself, because he can found a community when there is none. That's citizenship. That is, you can be an individual, and you can be one degree higher. You can do more than just be yourself, you see. You can dismiss from your loins a new group. That's the highest what a citizen can do, you see, found a city.
So will you kindly note that in the problem of American womanhood, to this day, there stands before you your own decision to avoid all pragmatic and utilitarian philosophies by which it is tried -- people try to express the idiotic idea that we belong to the realm of means, that we are useful. I hope that you are ab- -- all are absolutely useless, because that's the only way for going to Heaven. All people who are only useful go to hell. And this is -- has to be said, because most people I meet are overworked, because they have a terrible fear tha- -- you see, that they aren't useful. Now if a -- a person sleeps well, and plays well, and s- -- who laughs well, and jokes well, that -- he's obviously on his way to paradise. But if he only -- tearing his head, you see, that he has, or she has so many things to do, then it is high time that she takes a rest and isn't cluttered up so totally, you see. And doesn't think that her justification is by works, but her justification is by faith. And nobody -- not one of us deserves to -- live if you reckon what we can achieve. I mean, our achievements are all minus, you see.
Now these women have impressed the American men with this doctrine. But now the women strangely enough all run away from their own perfection and want to be useful, charitable, organized, you see, and -- cetera, et cetera. Every one of them goes into a factory or into a business, leave their children at home and want to be useful. That's a very strange outcome of a good -- movement that sprang from the following male experience.
I think -- in a strange way, there is a tradition in this country for this, which of course is hidden, which I'd like to bring to your attention. As you know, there is quite a Dutch streak in this country. The Dutch, in their fight against Spain, set a great example of independence in the time of Cromwell. They already were, you see, independent from the big, old monarchies. They not only had New Amsterdam, which is today New York, but they also had at home a constitution in which the lord protector--the "statt-holder" as he was called--the Prince of Orange, and the freedom of the cities were in a very similar way connected as between General Washington and the 13 colonies. And the 13
colonies couldn't help, when they got independence, you see, to think in similar terms, that they now needed a chief executive, you see, but that he shouldn't own them in any way. And you know there ha- -- was a dispute. Mrs. Washington would have liked to become queen in America. But it couldn't be done. The Americans sim- -- wanted nothing of it, you see. And I told you that Washington's birthday couldn't be celebrated because it was too much like royalty. On the other hand, everybody in America voted the general as -- the important decider. And I gave you an example of this in my -- last time's quotation, that the -- Mr. John Jay couldn't say anything more important to the minister of foreign affairs in -- in Madrid, in Spain, but that the general wanted the Mississippi Valley, you see, and the general, that was Washington. So he had a place all by himself, like the Prince of Orange.
Now John Adams, wh- -- while the war was raging, had to live in Holland, and had to negotiate loans, because the people here were on a spending spree, and had a very hard time to get the money for their guns and ammunitions. And he copied for the benefit of the people at home, for the Continental Congress, a description of the -- what they -- he calls the statt-holdership, that is, the place the prince of Orange held in this -- in the 12 republics of Holland. And you always have to think 13 colonies and 12 republics at that time seemed very similar, indeed. Also in numbers, the -- the Dutch -- Holland is -- was as peopled as the United States: 2 and-a-half to 3 million people, you see, there and here. And there were these old relations, that as you know, the Pilgrim fathers had first gone to Holland and lived in Leyden, because of the religious tolerance that existed there.
So he says, "I'm sending you an account of the Dutch constitution. It is full of instruction for the United States of America, and it will serve to explain many political phenomena."
Now what does he say? I can't read you the whole paper, but what I have to tell you is the following:
"Offers the most tempting for the princes of Orange and their houses, have been made to the statt-holders, provided they would depart ever so little from the engagements which they have taken with their country. But they have rejected them all with disdain, and would not have other friends nor other enemies than those of the republic."
Think of Benedict Arnold. That's just exactly the contemporary, you see. Arnold, who -- who did not act like this, you see, "that they have rejected them all with disdain, and would not have other friends nor other enemies than those of the republic."
And now, will you kindly copy the following sentence into your notes?
"As she was in some sort their daughter, they could not but have a lively affection for her. As she was in some sort their daughter, they could not but have a lively affection for her, to such a degree as to be at all times ready to sacrifice their lives and all things to her defense."
Now that is the unheard-of language, which you only find in the Old Testament--in the Song of Songs, perhaps--that men are willing to sacrifice their lives not for their mother tongue, or their patriot- -- patriotism, but because they love their country as their daughter.
"As she was in some sort their daughter, they could not but have a lively affection for her to such a degree as to be at all times ready to sacrifice their lives and all things to her defense."
This is written on October 11th, 1-7-8-0 -- 1780. At such an early date, you see, the Americans tried to find a special relation to their country different from the kingdoms of Europe, worthy of free men, and yet with the full responsibility of sacrifice and of belonging. Nothing of utilitarianism there, nothing of individualism, but an unsoluble -- insoluble identification as between father and daughter. And I think that this passage deserves to be written as the motto over the problems which are besetting this country to this day. The place of the woman not, but of the feminine qualities of the human soul, which are of course just as much in every ma- -- man as they are in every -- woman. You and I, we are not -- we are human only if I contain as many feminine elements as you are able to contain masculine elements.
And it is -- what I want to bring out is that the daughter for the first time in the history of mankind has beco- -- of sec- -- of political history, has become a type, an attitude of great, worldwide importance. Since it is -- she's never mentioned in your discussions of individualism and women's rights, it is high time for you that you say goodbye to momitis, and motherhood, and so on, and think in these terms of your relations in this country, because obviously, if this has been stressed or perhaps over-stressed, you will also find only then access to the other attitudes of sister, bride, and related types.
I do not say that men can only -- women can only live as daughters. But since they are treated here as the treasure to be endowed, to be showered with--the word "shower" is a good expression, as you know, in a -- the engagement party just before the wedding--that she is the center of attention of anything that is done too much to her in this country, or too little to her. Both will have to be cured by her consideration from her central and strange -- strangely
unique position.
The women in this country came to be part and parcel of the political scene, because they were needed for the petitions for all the other great causes. Women's rights have come into the forefront here not so much because they first asked for their own rights, but for 50 years, they signed petitions for the slaves; they signed temp- -- you see, they joined temperance societies; they joined Prohibition societies; they were of course the great supporters of Channing, the Unitarian minister, in his peace drive. Therefore, women joined the fray or the political battle by indirection, by making these causes, you see, first their own causes. Without the women, the Abolition movement could never have made any headway. Charles Sumner, the senator from Massachusetts, who was the leading Abolitionist in the North with William Lloyd Garrison, wrote to his friend, Susan Anthony, "Send petitions, send petitions with your signatures. That's all I have to go by in the Senate," you see, in the '50s of the 19th century.
So you see that the woman came into the political -- on the political scene not as a voter--which she had no vote--and not as a technologically emancipated woman who had no work to do in the kitchen, but as something third, as the chorus in the Greek tragedy, as the petitioner for other people's rights, invoking mercy for the slaves, invoking pe- -- man's interest for peace.
And it is important that you see that there is, besides your strange idiosyncrasy only to see individuals in the world--I nowhere see individuals. I have never seen an individual so far, except people who commit suicide. We all live, of course, by being called into life by other people's needs. We are kept going because other people ask something from us. And the right of petition was for these women the discovery that they already were asked to do something in the community. They couldn't be denied, you see, the right of petition, although they did not vote. And I want you to -- I cannot go into all the -- all the wonderful details of this right-of-petition story, but it is a great story.
The most eloquent handler, manipulator of petitions in the United States has been John Quincy Adams, who from 1831 to 1848 indefatigably forced the House of Representatives in Washington to listen to the petitions which he laid before them. Several times he was to be ejected for this from the House, because people -- the South just was infuriated with these petitions signed by Negroes, by slaves, and by women. So one day he would defend the right of women to petition. The other day the right of Negroes. I have here one very beautiful thing which is at the bottom of the power of this country to revamp its political structure by the right of petition. This -- no, I -- I'm sorry. I didn't bring this. I had another quotation from a -- from him here. Well, there is a very eloquent plea made by him in the year 1837 in the House of Representatives, that -- and he
simply asked the eloquent question, when these people shout -- the gentlemen from the South: "Women, Negroes. That's a contempt of the House that you handle such stuff here."
He says, "What man should not have the right to implore his neighbor for an act of mercy?"
I think that's the most beautiful sentence ever spoken in a political, common group. And I can assure you that all the visitors from Europe whom -- to whom I read this sentence begin to understand the United States. It is this one sentence that has never been denied in this country to this day, and which doesn't exist in France. It doesn't exist in Germany. It doesn't even exist in England. You could not say in a political body with any understanding that anybody can implore his neighbor for an act of mercy and make this the principle of our mutual behavior. And you don't know yourself. And you are all poisoned with the European political, scientific, and philosophical dogmas about ra- -- reason, and --. This is not America. Pardon me, but I'm a better American than many of you, because this one sentence has been inherited from the 18th century--it's a membership in the churches and the synagogues of this country--that you can appeal publicly to the fact that anybody has the right of petition, you see, to ask for an act of mercy from his neighbor. And people will be { }, and they will bow to it.
Thirty years ago, 40 years ago, a friend of mine--she's now an old lady, and grandmother--a great-grandmother as a matter of fact--was a young Archi- -- architect here in this country at MIT in Massachusetts. And she heard of the massacres of the Armenians in Asia Minor by the Turks during World War I. And she was upset, and she wanted to rescue the remaining -- Armenian and bring them to this country, as it later has really been done. Many Armenians today are here because of this act of mercy of this young woman. But how was it brought about?
She went to the state department in Washington and went to the allegedly competent man in the passport division and he -- she said, "You have to leave -- let these people in. I petition for them."
Sh- -- they said -- she said -- they -- they said, this man said, "Do you have any credentials?"
"Oh no. I -- I don't know who they are. I only know that they are in this plight. But I intervene for them. You have to bring them over."
Well, he laughed and said, "Why, the law says that these people have to
apply to the next American consul. And there they can of course perhaps get a visa, and then they may come over."
"Well," he -- she said. "That won't work. You have to give me a blanko. And I have one friend in Asia Minor, and then he'll do what he can to put these people on ships."
"It's impossible. I have absolutely no instructions. I can't do this."
"Well," she said. "You will have to."
Well, he -- he said, "Well, what are you going to do?"
"Well, I'm going to sit here."
"Well, but I leave the room. I have to -- will have to lock you up."
"Oh, that makes no difference," she said. "I'll stay."
"But -- by and large, Lady," he said, "young -- young -- my" -- young Charlotte--Charlotte was her name--"What are you thinking that I can do? This is outside my power."
"Oh," she said. "That's very simple. You are going to let these Armenians in."
"But why?" he said. "Why?"
"Well," he said, "that" -- she said, "that's very simple. You wish to go to Heaven. And of course, you have to knock at the door. Then Pe- -- then Peter will be there and he'll say, 'Who are you?' and -- and he'll -- you'll say, 'Let me in. I'm a decent fellow in the civil service of the United States.'"
And then she said, "But I'll be there. And I'll tell Peter, 'Don't let him in. He didn't let the Armenians in.'"
Now, pardon me. Only to show you the abyss that -- that separates you from the year of the Lord 1916. They came. He did let them in. This threat worked. Was { } inheritance. It wouldn't today. You are all absolutely ruled -- by the FBI, and the McCarthy, cetera -- et cetera.
I asked my friends in class in the college several times--different classes in the last years--if they would protect a guest at their house against the police. If at
midnight, there would be a knock at the door, would they still, as a Southern man who runs -- gives hospitality to a guest, would they still think a guest was under their custody, and that they had to identify themselves with this guest? Did they still know what hospitality meant in this -- in these modern matchboxes in which we live? It is very hard to think--there is not even a guest room by these modern -- you see, allowed for by the modern architect. The grandmother cannot live there. The stepmother can't, the mother-in-law cannot live there, let alone a guest. And therefore people have lost the feeling -- just this feeling that here is a man imploring their mercy. That's what a guest is. The weaker, you see, can demand hospitality, just as a woman, because he -- the weaker makes a man human. Anybody who can extend, you see, help to a -- to a weaker person is a human being. Your behavior towards a baby shows that, you see. That you become the human by not trampling on the baby, but protecting it, although the baby cannot secure this protection in its own -- his own right.
So the weaker -- the -- Americans are quite strong, and so they have always helped the weaker. My -- my students, I don't know what your answer would be, but my students assured me after deliberations of several weeks that they would proceed in the following manner: if the sheriff came, and would ask the guest for a simple felony or crime, you see, a real crime, they would protect him, because--I'll tell you later why. But if the FBI came for high treason, political, independent thought, they would give him up.
Now obviously, the answer should be the other way around, you see. Obviously the man should be protected for his political views, you see, and she'll -- he should be extrad- -- -dited and if he was just a -- you see, an arsonist or a burglar. But what's the reason? The sheriff tradition, which you see at the wil- -- wild western film, is of the 18th century. And therefore people understand that sheriffs can be -- are equal, so to speak, you see. You -- you elect the sheriff, and therefore you can cheat him, even can go against him. But the FBI, that's the big mystery in the sky, and therefore, you cannot go against it. That's Uncle Sam at his best, or at his worst.
Now you live in two worlds at this moment, most of you, because you still boast of your individual reason, and so on. But when it comes to the higher powers of corporations and government, you are servile. The servile state is with us. I have never seen so much servility as I have seen in your -- in the younger generation. It's just appalling. In practice, everybody has his completely split personality. He reasons out everything for himself. He says he can commit suicide. I have even people who will argue that you have to help a man to consum- -- commit suicide. Decent women tell me that they would help any man who is a candidate for suicide to carry out this wonderful idea.
And so the deprivation, the disintegration is total, and the libertinism. But on the other hand, there is no liberty in the political realm. I mean, your own guest is given up by you at heart so that -- by -- to the FBI. So there is no hospitality left. The wildest savage wouldn't do such a -- wouldn't perpetrate such a crime, such in- -- such an individualization, such a lack of cohesion between two human beings as I have seen people commit.
A colleague one day when Hitler invaded France, came to me with a Stapel of books and said to me, would I accept these books from him as a present? I thought it was a nice idea. Then I looked at it; it was the Communist Manifest, and it was Lenin, and Trotsky, and all those writings, and he -- she said -- he said, "What do you mean?"
And he said, "You know, when Hitler now comes to America, you are lost, anyway. But I don't like to -- these books to be found on me."
But that's a similar idea, you see. You run and -- to abandon your next of kin--he was my next colleague in the department, you see--and throw him to the dogs, and get a -- rid of him, and --.
So this is quite serious. We have in the last 40 years, I have to remind you, lost all the concatenation of affection, and fear, and love, and faith, and hope, which was carried through the 20- -- the 19th century as a natural, from the 18th. And you are at this moment, therefore, in a very difficult position to recognize what is American. What they sell you since 1910 in America, is a counsel of despair. It is neither 19th century nor 18th century. It is just nihilism, suicide.
My students ar- -- argued the case that after all, Jesus had committed suicide--I told you this, here too, did I?--and -- and Hitler had sacrificed himself for his nation. That was a good American boy who -- upheld the two theses, that Hitler had sacrificed himself--mark you well--for his people, and that Jesus had committed suicide.
Now we live therefore in a world in which the old petition for mercy and would-you-help? you see, is no longer self- -- understood. People will turn away from you. I have seen people in New York, you see, being run over, and threequarters of the people rushing on and trying not to see what was happening, in order not to be stopped and not have to -- having to help them.
So beware. I'm not so sure that the Am- -- that you have any right to connect up, to link up with 19th- and 18th-century Americanism. At this moment, there is this half-and-half. There is still this underground tradition in many families alive. But what I see on the official campuses, and the official magazines, and
so, that is just nothing. It is just absolute decadent, and has no relation to the great story of America. And that happens at the end of every century, that there is one generation--you call it the lost generation or the angry generation. You call -- can also call it the decadent generation, the degenerates, the scoundrels, however you call it. The "silly generation" is perhaps the -- the best expression. And this silly generation in the ears of these men there do no longer ring the fundamental sentences of America's creed, that women are the daughter -- representative of the daughterland, of the future of this country, and that men endow them; and that every man is every man's brother or sister, so that everybody can implore everybody's help, you see, and hasn't to reason out whether he's introduced to him or not.
The women, after they had been used, or served as the signers of these petitions, very naturally then thought of their own position in society. But I'm so anxious to make you see that if you have the famous individual in America, with his own mind, as the captain of his soul--and how all these wonderful expressions--there has always been a class of people in the first half of the 19th century, the women, who were half-articulate. They were not voters, but they were in a position to make -- to speak, to make themselves very articulate indeed, and this is overlooked.
If I read the books -- the textbooks, for example, on the American story, one-half is always left out. The -- I read the story, for example, of the slaves, of the Abolition. And I have now two -- three textbooks that are used in American colleges, gone over -- the -- the ground of these books for the purpose of -- they nowhere mention that three-quarters of these Negroes have been begotten by white men, by white fathers. And therefore, the whole, real story of American Ne- -- the American Negro, you see, is not mentioned, that they have been loved, in a -- you may say as -- as not much love, but some affection was there from white men. Still the problem of the South is so desperate, because they're all cousins, all legitimate cousins -- illegitimate cousins. And that's of course much worse. The enmity between people in a family who don't like each other are always much more serious than the relations between people who don't know of each other, you see. It is very easy to love the Eskimo. But it is very much more difficult to love your daughter-in-law.
And in this country, the venom, the violence of the Negro question, the Ku Klux Klan, of course comes from the fact that all the parents, fathers of the people who are now quadruple stamp, have now gone to bed with the daughters of black -- the black race, and now they say they have to take an oath in front of their women, never again -- never shall our daughters, you see, do this with a -- with a black man.
So it is a very strange relation of a semi-personal character. The -- the slave, before the last industrial decade of the cotton kingdom, down to 1840, you may say, the slave was a semi-person. That is, he had made himself felt. He did speak, he did sing, he did sit in the same -- service, in the same worship with the family, now. Now you cannot worship God together without becoming kin -- akin, you see. It's just -- you can't do it. All this segregation stuff didn't exist, because the people had -- went to Church together, and cared for each other as they still -- that they are very glad in the South that the Negro woman is -- is asked to bring up the children. And she does it very well, probably much better than a white woman.
All these are pre-personal forms of political existence. Will you kindly note that I'm trying to convince you of the fact that no society ever has consisted of individuals? It cannot. There is always, besides the individuals, there are beings, like the children--and till 1850, like the woman, and the Negroes--we'll see that later this takes a different form after 1850--who are very important members of the ecclesiastical kingdom of our souls, but their mind doesn't, you see, doesn't -- isn't considered. They don't write philosophies. They don't vote. They don't make their will felt in legislation. And therefore -- and therefore, the attributes which you give so freely to every human being--that he is a man under his own will, under his own steam, with his own mind--have never been applied to these people.
And today one isn't allowed to mention this even, because today the women and the -- Negro have acquired personality. No doubt about that. But they hadn't in 1850. They made themselves felt. They petitioned. They spoke. They prayed. They sang. All the people's attributes where -- well, they were member of the people, but they were not members of the public. They belonged to the private life of the community. Can't you see this? And if you spe- -- split of the existence of people in private forms of life and public forms of life, then you are apt to overlook -- to -- only to think that everybody must become the -- join the public. And you overlook that perhaps some part of the population are better off if they are -- if there are no demands made on them for becoming public figures, that they would be much happier if they would be allowed to remain members of the people, but not have to become members of the public. This is, after all, very serious.
The first woman who showed that she wanted to serve up, and leave the people and the family and become a person in the public's -- or the public -- in the public life I would like to mention for a very simple act. Her name is Lucy Blackwell Stone. She lived from 1818 to 1893 -- 1818 to 1893, and she did that which is now quite common in America, but which was unheard-of in her days, she -- when she got married, I think it was in 1848, again one of these -- at the --
at the moment of decision in this country, at the great turning point, she declined to accept the name of her husband. And she went on to call herself Lucy Stone. Just as Miss Perkins remained as secretary of labor, Miss Perkins, and hardly -- does anybody know in this ha- -- room, what her -- real name is? Miss Perkins, the secretary of labor in the Roosevelt administration. Well, of course, she'll say her real name is Miss Perkins.
But I think that our future is more real than our past. And if you marry, it would be a curse if you wouldn't ac- -- accept your new name, in my estimation, because that means that you can really -- are free to change. And if you are cursed with your -- your accidental first, beginner's name, that means you can never be transformed, never be reborn, never be regenerated, never become an original person, that you are just a dependence, you see, on the -- on the clan who gave you the name. But today, with your naturalism, you think that it is exceedingly nice for a woman to have the right to keep her maiden name when she gets married. Well, the only result is that she can't marry. I mean, she can go to bed with a m- -- man, but she -- cannot become his mate, because that makes him over. And he only is made over because he can quote her as his wife. I'm not speaking of her so much as of him, you see. A -- a man who cannot point out that his wife, you see, agrees with him, can never be in the majority, because a man with his wife together is in the majority, as -- to others, because he has convinced one person that he is right. And more it doesn't take.
Well, is- -- isn't that true? The immense power that accrues to an individual who can point out that his wo- -- wife is ready to go to Australia with him, or to the ends of the world? That's much more than -- than to say of yourself that you are off. That is nothing. The bachelor, I mean, he's erratic. It proves nothing. I mean, he goes just on -- on -- to adventures. But when his wife is ready to leave the country with him, the cause must be a really good cause. She must believe in him.
When Mr. Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic -- on the solo flight--I think it was in 1928, wasn't it?--he wrote a book. Who knows how the book was called?
(We.)
Yes, because you cannot go alone. He had to call it We, because he had no wife then with him. But it was his plane which represented all the work and genius of American workmanship. Herbert Hoover, the president at that time, made a very wonderful speech on the occasion. And he welcomed him home and said, "In the 'we,' Mr. Lindbergh had taken to heart all the workmanship of America," you see, everything that had supported him in flying this "Eagle of St. Louis," or what was it?
("The Spirit of St. Louis.")
"Spirit of St. Louis."
"We," gentlemen, is the great creation in middle life. And people who, since Lucy Stone declined this honor to become a "we," we can really say that individual- -- individualism in this country has triumphed. In the year 1850 then, it is true to say that with the Abolitionism already { }, and with the Prohibition, men's will and men's -- mind had cut up the country into as many individuals as there were heads. And -- of course the children never come into this; but as you know, since 1850, even children today are treated as though they were individuals, to their great misery and calamity.
The -- I told you the story of the little child my bo- -- own son had to treat. He's a psychiatrist. And parents brought a very gifted child to him whom they had ruined. The child was musical; so the parents had, in their vanity, insisted that the child at the ripe age of 1 already should be -- learn to distinguish the composer- -- composers, and know who -- what was by Schubert and what was by Beethoven. Well, this child was destroyed in this process. And when he came to my son to be treated, was just a vegetable. If you treat a child as a -- as an individual, you see, at a time when it has no business to be treated as an individual, you destroy the child.
I'm very serious, gentlemen. All -- every -- human being is born as a genius, but only if you leave him without responsibility and you -- without choices; for these -- you have to command. He has to obey. A child that hasn't obeyed cannot keep his genius. You do not allow children to obey, so they all go to seed. They have to make too many choices too early.
I have seen children sitting in a restaurant of the ripe age of 3, and they had to order their menu themselves. That kills the child. It kills a child, because a child must trust -- trustfully be in this frame of reference of other people's directions, and then it can learn. For example, memorize. It can learn then the for- -- every other language. { } at least, but it must be -- left without decision. It must be told. So instead that the children should learn something in our -- your schools today, and know at -- Latin at 10, and -- and Greek at 12, and French at 14, they know nothing. And at 20 then, they try to -- to -- to learn Spanish so that they can make money in South America. It's very tragic.
This country has, by carrying over the idea of the individual, where that doesn't belong, has made people -- has -- is destroying them.
I got a commission -- when I lived in Germany. A commit- -- a committee
visited me from America, saying, "We are destroying all genius. We still understand that in central Europe, you have found ways and means of protecting genius. Would you kindly tell me -- tell us what to do?" That serious was the situation 30 years ago in the eyes of serious American educators. The -- they are no better people here, but you don't allow them to be people. As we say, they are the best people in the world, you see. Make them into a public, they're all fools.
A child that cannot obey in the first seven years of the -- of the world can never take command, can never lead. And all these leadership classes which you now have are just ridiculous, because how can you lead when you haven't learned to -- to -- to be led? You have now, I'm told, in these classes here everywhere, leadership classes, probably leading to the icebox. What? Leadership, what for? "Leadership!" Don't use this -- this wonderful term for the silly things it is used now today for leadership. Leadership? I -- I accept Stonewall Jackson as a leader. Or -- or Sam Houston. But I don't accept 12-year-old boys as leaders. To what? For what? For eating cheese sandwiches. What do they lead into? It is all corrupt, every great word in this mo- -- moment in this country is abused for ridiculous things, for playlike things. A child should never be heard -- hear of leadership in playlike fashion. That's a coach, and that's a quarterback, and that's all right for these, you see. But it isn't a leader. That's -- that's reserved for serious business when your life is at stake.
Well, the women of course have paid the penalty of all this. They did get the vote, but nothing has been changed by getting the vote. Absolutely nothing.
Now before the women did get the vote -- and I have -- just to give you an example. I told you that pacifism has not reached its goal. The way war will disappear is by the power of the weapons. The old, famous Nobel--whose -- whose Nobel prizes you all know--was much more intelligent than just to give money to inventors. That is the Swedish inventor of dynamite. Was a very great man, and he saw clearly and argued with the pacifists of the end of the 19th century already, that war would be abolished because he knew that man could make the weapons so atrocious, you see, that they would recoil on the victor and -- as we have it today, you see. So war--as Alcoholic Anonymous is necessary to fight the alcoholic, you see, depraved, that is, a formation of a group--so it is with the weapons of mankind, so it is with the foodstuff of mankind, so it is with the Negro question in the South, that you cannot legislate any of these things by will, by an idea of your mind. Idealism, gentlemen, in dealing with the people's problem, is out of the question. Your ideal will doesn't happen. It -- it doesn't work. And the reason of course is because we are not fully in our own -- represented by our own mind.
The alcoholic- -- I have here a friend in Palisades. He came out from our
little village to live here; he had been an alcoholic. And then -- now he devotes himself to saving other people by this Alcoholic Anonymous business. Well, he invests his whole life in this, you see. That's more than his mind. He doesn't give a signature to a petition, you see. But he is there day and night, like a doctor, like a nurse. At this moment, you can change the world. You cannot solve the women's problem by giv- -- getting -- writing a signature that you want to get the vote. And then by voting.
These are -- the mind is timeless, I told you. And the mind has no sense of timing. It has no perseverance. It has no patience. Your heart can persevere against all the moods of your conscience, your conscious life. Then you will achieve something. Anything that is just the subject of our will, our aim, our own goals, our own purposes, is below our human dignity. Not our will must be done. It must be always done a higher will. And this -- this higher will always demands the investment of our whole person, and not just the investment of a signature, or a vote, or a bill in Congress, or a letter to your Congressman. That just isn't enough to change the world.
Well, I'm very disappointed. My time is up, again.