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Partial text of address by President Grayson Kirk of Columbia University on the occasion of a Founder's Day celebration and the 225th birthday of Thomas Jefferson, at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, Friday, April 12, 1968.

"THE UMPIRAGE OF REASON"

So much has been written about Thomas Jefferson, and by men who have devoted years to the study of his life and thought, that your speaker today would be presumptuous if he were to attempt on this occasion merely to add another eulogy, or to make another appraisal, of that much-examined life. But there have been a few men who in the course of American history have achieved such towering greatness that their renown has continued to grow through the years, and we would be the poorer if we did not pause from time to time to pay our tribute to them and, in so doing, to draw from their lives renewed courage and, hopefully, greater wisdom as we struggle with the baffling problems of our own day. Such a man was Thomas Jefferson, and today, on the eve of the two hundred and twenty- fifth anniversary of his birth, we would be remiss if we did not take the occasion to salute the memory of a man to whom all Americans owe an unpayable debt.

Of all the men of his time whom we would wish to have known personally. I am confident that Jefferson would be overwhelmingly the first choice. This is not because of our respect for his forty years of dedicated service to the public life of our infant nation, but because Jefferson, the man., was so utterly fascinating. Like many of his European contemporaries he epitomized in the astonishing range of his interests the new enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century. His intellectual curiosity was almost boundless. Whether the subject of inquiry was agriculture or architecture, geology or music, literature or politics, geography or history, Jefferson was well-informed. He could talk or write about all these fields with knowledge based on wide and systematic reading, and throughout his long life he always sought to learn even more.

But to this immense range of his intellectual interests he added another dimension that was peculiarly American. This was a constant concern for the practical application of all new discoveries on the rapidly widening horizons of man's thought. He wanted to bring these discoveries to the enrichment and growth of his country. I was for this reason that while the sheer, intellectual exercise of abstract philosophy was of little interest to him, the study of political theory and its practical implementation engrossed his attention throughout his life.

Perhaps it was the touch of Puritanism In his character that was responsible for this concern about practicality. He would not have thought of himself as a Puritan; he might even have denied the allegaticn., but he was frugal in his personal life, enormously self-disciplined even in early youth, and he displayed no small degree of Puritanism in his profound distaste for the decadence in morals and politics that he observed in the capitals of Europe.

Equally American was his unswerving faith in democracy, not merely as the best mechanism for solving the ancient problem of reconciling liberty and authority in government, but as a way of life. Given a widespread system of public education and a social and political system that interposed no artificial barriers to the fostering and recognition of talent, he believed that a natural aristocracy of ability was bound to emerge. The men of such a true aristoi could be counted on to lead our new nation onward to its destined greatness. His own life had exemplified this principle and he saw no reason to doubt its universal validity.

Still another quality was strongly., if not peculiarly,, American. This was his confident trust in the future. Unlike his great antagonist, Hamilton, who was given to periods of deepest melancholy and pessimism, Jefferson was serene in the face of adversity, philosophical about his defeats, and buoyantly optimistic about the future of the society he had helped to build. Thus intellectually fortified, he had an enormous zest for life. He would have relished the words of Alfred de Musset:

"Qu'il est doux d'etre au monde, et quel. bien que la vie"
(Sonnet a Alfred Tattet, 1838)

In the long pageant of American history, no man more richly deserves the affectionate gratitude of the people whom he served so well. In all honesty we can say of Jefferson what another Virginian, Woodrow Wilson, once wrote of Walter Bagehot:

"Occasionally, a man is born into the world whose mission it evidently is to clarify the thought of his generation., and to vivify it; to give it speed where it is slow, vision where it is blind, balance where it is out of poise... "
(Essay on A Literary Politician)

I I

Today we are in desperate need of these Jeffersonian qualities in our leaders and in our national life. it is not too much to say that in many ways our society is in a more perilous condition than at any time since the convulsive conflict between the states a century ago. We seem to be in an era of transition from a past which we have abandoned to a future which we are unable as yet to comprehend but whose portents fill us with more dismay than anticipation. We have a multitude of contending counselors but we are unable to place our trust in any of them because we feel, almost viscerally, that they, too, are merely groping without great success to understand the new world about us. and still less do we feel that they have the wisdom to order its affairs to our satisfaction. Cur nation is in trouble.

The enumeration of our present difficulties and dangers would ruffle even the calm temperament of a Jefferson. At home, disrespect for law and authority has reached such a level of acceptance that its natural concomitant.. resort to violence, has almost achieved respectability. The old social sanctions of the church and family have lost much of their traditional force. Our young
people, in disturbing numbers, appear to reject all forms of authority.. from whatever source derived, and they have taken refuge in a turbulent and inchoate Nihilism whose sole objectives are destructive. I know of no time in our history when the gap between the generations has been wider or more potentially dangerous.

Honesty compels us to admit that we are threatened with a loss of our sense of national unity and with it our sense of direction. Our unity has been imperiled by our racial conflicts for which, despite good-will and honest effort, we can envisage no simple or easy solution available to us in time to avoid the danger of large-scale and continuing social disorder. Less imminently perilous but also damaging to our sense of unity is the generational gap to which I have just referred. Disunity is also being fostered by the growing incidence of friction in the attempted resolution of disputes between industrial management and organized labor. When even our teachers and our governmental employees feel free to strike in order to try to impose their collective will upon our people, I cannot but feel that all is not well with our society.

Our sense of national direction has become blurred and Indistinct because some of the old unifying goals, such as the winning of the West and the creation of a generally affluent society, have been largely achieved; others, such as the encouragement of the spread of our political institutions to other lands, have been abandoned because we have had to accept the fact that they were the product of a time when our enthusiasm exceeded our sophistication. Moreover,, our newer announced goals -- to elminate the pockets of poverty remaining in our country, to assure, full equality of opportunity for all Americans., and to mount vast efforts against the menace of Communism wherever it arises -- these either have failed to kindle our imagination or they have evoked more disunity than agreement. Perhaps we can sum up the situation by saying that we have lost Jefferson's faith in the inevitability of progress and we have not as yet found a new unifying faith for our time.

Our posture abroad offers us little compensating comfort. The image which we have had of ourselves in the world as a highly moral, altruistic, peace-loving and progressive people has never been as widely accepted by other nations as we have believed or hoped. Other nations on occasion have tended to conclude that we have greater power than responsibility and greater impulsiveness than mature judgment. And some of our recent foreign activities, however much they may have been founded in a belief that they were vital to our national interest, have stirred other peoples in the free world into violent and belligerent opposition. So great a power as the United States can scarcely hope for affection from weaker peoples., but we do need to have and to hold their respect for our motives and our goals. At the moment, this house is in disrepair and while the vandalism done to it understandably has been encouraged by those who count themselves as our enemies, it would be an act of folly on our part if we were to ascribe all foreign antagonisms to their machinations.

Some solace, of course, can be derived from the fact that many of our current troubles are being shared in varying degrees by other countries. la many Western European states the family and the church also seem to have lost much of their ancient authority. Youth protest movements erupt from time to time even in authoritarian communist states. One senses in the countries of Western Europe, as here, a general unease, a feeling of drift and uncertainty as social systems lose their traditional rigidity and as political leaders struggle to cope with the bewildering problems of governing an urban, technologically advanced, industrial society.

Thus., in Western Europe,, too, the old order is gone; it may not have been in actuality efficient or just, but it was to many people, and in retrospect, a time of power and glory which men remember with nostalgia or read about with yearning. Artzybashev once wrote that there never could have been a golden age in the past because the men of the time would not have been able to recognize it as such, but in many a European country the transition from the days of power to the present has been abrupt and brutal, and men still are stirred in their hearts more by a great cause than by the possession of dishwashers and television sets. There, as here, men need a faith to inspire them and to take them out of the routine of their daily lives, but in most of the democracies there is little such faith today. The goals of car time are too complex, too technical, too lacking in the unifying emotional appeal that gives men a pride in their heritage. Men may respect the political leader who is an able technician, but this is merely an act of sober judgment, and they respond emotionally to the charisma of a Churchill or a John Kennedy with an enthusiasm that no technician can command. Remembering Hitler, this can be a great danger, but it is me from which, despite our sophistication, we are not likely ever to be wholly free.

The unfulfilled need for inspiring leadership may be me source of our troubles today, but there are others., perhaps even more fundamental, which we may not ignore. Today, for example, our problems, urban., industrial and social, are so great in magnitude and so complex in nature that they can be dealt with efficiently only by a greater concentration of governmental authority than our democracy has been constructed to provide or our people are prepared to support. We have always said proudly that though our democracy may be a clumsy form of government, we accept this inefficiency as a reasonable price for the protection of our liberties. But today though we cling to our liberties with appropriate passion we demand from our government a degree efficiency that our system was designed to make almost impossible. I do not conclude that we should now abandon our liberties in the interest of efficiency; the price would be far too great. But we cannot forever have our cake and eat it too, and we should not be afraid to remember Jefferson's counsel that each generation should be prepared to re-examine its political institutions and to re-shape them as might be necessary in order to meet more adequately the needs of the time.

There is yet another facet to the problem of effective governance in a present-day democracy. This is the influence of the new technology of mass communications. Part of the ancient mystique of leadership has now been eroded by the over-exposure of government officials. Charles de Gaulle, almost alone among Western leaders, has understood this principle and has avoided its pitfalls. By contrast, our leaders are expected to appear almost an call before the television camera, to hold innumerable press conferences, to issue a communique after every official meeting, and to share their thoughts, even if they may be fragmentary and half - formed, with everyone in the country. No leader can long survive such ordeals and emerge from them unscathed.

Moreover, this intense, day-by-day reporting brought nightly into the homes of all America necessarily is fragmentary. It can lead men to fix their attention upon the trees and forget the woods. It can stampede them into hasty and ill-formed conclusions that may not well serve the national interest. I have often wondered, for example, if the British people would have been willing to sustain the effort of the First World War if they had viewed nightly in living color the fantastic slaughter of their sons in the battle of the Somme.

Finally, effectiveness of leadership is complicated by the influence of mass communications in stimulating what is usually called the revolution of rising expectations, Visual reporting of mass violence in one city inevitably has its effect upon men elsewhere who feel that their plight and their needs are like those who have resorted to force to try to effect change. Also, it is becoming
increasingly clear that governmental stability in new or weak countries may be in jeopardy for a long time because modern communications have led their peoples to demand more, and at a faster rate, than it is within the power of
their governments to provide.

I do not cite these influences of mass -communications to condemn them. They are here to stay. I cite them only to illustrate the further complications which they have brought to the problems of modern government. They are instruments of tremendous power in democratic opinion-making Somehow, we must learn to use them, and if necessary to control them in such away as to make them serve the public good as well as the public pleasure.

But the troubles of contemporary society run far beyond the question of leadership in public life and the influence of mass communications upon public opinion and the political process. The plain fact is that we do not know how to solve the new problems that confront our society. They are too new, too complex, too immense in magnitude, and neither our experience nor that
of other peoples is of much help to us as we grope for answers.

Take, for example, the problems of our cities. With rare exceptions, American city government has not been one of the more admirable features of our public life. Corruption, inefficiency and graft in local government are parts of our political legacy that we would like to forget. But now, beginning without a strong financial or organizational base, our cities have been swollen by masses of new migrants., beset by racial troubles, bedeviled by impossible budgetary needs, and haunted by the exodus of businesses and middle-class citizens to nearby suburbs. In the absence of new and fresh approaches, some of our cities in time may become almost ungovernable.

Let us look for a moment at me single facet of this problem of the metropolis, the matter of public welfare. The mass migration of largely indigent people to great metropolitan centers has created an administrative and financial nightmare for welfare agencies. In New York City we have today almost twice as many people on relief as during the depths of the depression. We have more dependent children than the entire population of Omaha or Akron. The cost of our city welfare programs now exceeds a billion dollars a year.

No one knows how much of this burden properly should be carried by the city, the state or the Federal Government. No one knows whether dependent mothers of large families, when there is no father present, should be left at home on relief to rear their children or whether it would be better to encourage the mothers to become employed and to provide for the children during work hours in Day Care Centers. No one knows how the vicious cycle of dependency, which threatens to go on generation after generation, can be broken. We do know that the present, improvised system is hopelessly inadequate and that is almost all we know. And yet ours is certainly the most affluent, and perhaps the best educated, society in history.

What I am trying to say is that., despite all our past successes, we have by no means demonstrated that our existing political structure, designed as it was for another day, has the capability to meet these new needs and to solve these new problems. Ibis does not mean that I see any panacea in any of the other ideologies that confront us from abroad. MY own ancestors were living nearby in Virginia before Jefferson was born, and I am old-fashioned enough to believe passionately in the importance of America, not only to ourselves, but to the world. What I do mean is that we must not allow our deep commitment to our past to freeze our thinking and to prevent us from dealing imaginatively with the problems of the present. I think Jefferson would be the first to agree to that common-sense proposition.

I I I

Among all our grave national concerns, how shall we select those to which we would give first priority? The clamor of the present is so insistent that easy agreement on such a matter is perhaps impossible. Each person win .make his own list; hopefully, he will do so with only one criterion., the national welfare. The lists will differ, for that is the way of democratic societies, but the exercise is important. Having said this,, obviously I now have the obligation to indicate my own to you.

First on, my list, in timing and importance, is the need for this country to extricate itself as quickly as possible from its current involvement in Vietnam. No other item on the national agenda can be dealt with effectively until this has been done. Not one of our great social, economic or political problems can be made manageable until this conflict can be brought to an end.

This is so because our present policy has produced among car people more bitter dissension than any issue since the tragic War Between the States. Abroad, it has given a valuable hostage to those who regard themselves as our enemies, and it has obliged us to sustain a serious loss of esteem among those who are our friends.

This is not a time for recrimination. Our policies have been made by sincere, honorable and patriotic men who do not deserve the calumny to which they have been subjected; they have been drawn almost inexorably into a tragic situation. Our national debate should not be based upon personalities but upon an assessment of the situation solely in terms of the present and future welfare and security of our country.

One developing by-product of our involvement is alarming but little noticed. This is the evil effect which may come from the present tendency born out of hostility to the war, to elevate civil disobedience into a civic virtue. It is difficult to disagree with the observation made recently by Judge Charles Wyzanski who wrote:

"Every time a law is disobeyed by even a man whose motive is solely ethical, in the sense that it is responsive to a deep moral conviction, there are unfortunate consequences. He himself becomes more prone to disobey laws for which he has no profound repugnance. He sets an example for others who may not have his pure motives, he weakens the fabric of society."
--(Atlantic Monthly February 1968)

The longer the present controversy continues, the greater will become this peril; it is one that could be around to haunt us long after the occasion which produced it has disappeared.

Nations as well as individuals can make mistakes. No matter how well intentioned an original course may have been, things do not at times turn out as planned. When this occurs, it is often wiser to face the changed situation squarely than to seek vindication through stubborn persistence in a course that appears to offer ever-fewer possibilities of final gains to match the costs involved. Given all the complexities of our present posture In Vietnam, it is my own unhappy conclusion that it is not possible for us to derive from this conflict, no matter how it is finally settled, enough long-range benefit to the security and welfare of our country to justify the effort we have made or may be called upon to make. Therefore, though sadly., because of the fiscal and human costs we have incurred, I am obliged to conclude that a first priority item on our national agenda ought to be an honorable and orderly disentanglement from this well-meant but essentially fruitless effort. The United States will be the greatest power in the world long after Vietnam has been forgotten; it will be a still greater power if it has not suffered the impairment of its own national unity and morale by undue persistence in a course which offers so many hazards and so few compensating rewards.

The second item an my own list is the urgent achievement of greater economic and fiscal stability at home. Our government must be made strong enough to protect its balance of payments, strong enough to halt the vicious, inflationary, wage -price spiral. It must be able to take a firmer hand in resolving equitably the conflict between a powerfully- organized labor force and a naturally resistant management, and it must be strong enough to resist the natural political impulse to gain popular favor by ever-more lavish spending on matters that may be only peripheral to our national well-being. A technologically advanced society must be more of a welfare state than the one which Jefferson governed or envisioned, but we are in trouble if we allow our social expenditures to rise at a rate faster than our growth in productivity. Moreover, we weaken the heart and core of our country when we permit people to become unnecessarily dependent upon the largesse of government. Even the Romans found bread and circuses to be useful as a temporary expedient but fatal in the long-run.

As the ground is cleared by progress toward these first two great policy objectives, other items fall into place in proper sequence. The provision of equality of status and opportunity for all Americans must be a perpetual concern of our society. it may never be perfectly achieved, and it may not be achievable in time to prevent us from much trouble.. but it is the only goal suitable for a democratic people, and we must bend our best energies toward it.

To make this goal effectively achievable, a fiscally stable government underpinned by a dynamic economy must undertake greater expenditures for the support of research and education. There is little opportunity in an advanced society for the uneducated to find jobs and income enough for the proper support of their families. And it is better in every way for the country to spend money on education, and on the research that will create new jobs, than upon welfare.  No man can feel a part of a society when he is dependent for his living upon its charity. In such a situation he becomes abject and inert, or bitter and rebellious, and these are both signs of trouble.

Finally, a fifth goal must be the rationalization of our governmental structure and processes to make them adequate to the needs of our day. We will never draw into career positions in the public service men who are capable of manning the controls of today's society until we are willing to pay them salaries commensurate with what they would gain in ordinary professional life. Only thus can we assure the supply of talent we need; only thus can we have reasonable protection against the danger of corruption and graft. It is a sad commentary upon our short-sightedness that outstanding men, called to high office, can only accept at the price of great personal, financial sacrifice; it is equally regrettable that the government today can secure the services of first-quality experts in many fields only by the device of making contracts with non-profit organizations specially created for the purpose.

But able personnel can be easily frustrated In their effectiveness by improper structure and faulty processes. We need today another Hoover Commission to study these matters in the Federal Government, and we need them equally in the states and In our cities. We are trying to operate a complicated and sensitive society with mechanisms devised for the needs of a simpler day. Perhaps I can illustrate this point by the parenthetical observation that the University budget for which I am responsible is ten times as great as the entire Federal budget which Thomas Jefferson took to his Congress for approval. Here again., we should remember the admonitions of Jefferson who foresaw the problem even if he could not foresee the nature of the society that has grown out of matrix he did so much to fashion.

The title for these comments this morning was taken from Jefferson's Third Annual Message to Congress. There he spoke eloquently "of cultivating general friendship, and of bringing collisions of interest to the umpirage of reason rather than of force."  In the years ahead we shall have need to remember this counsel. If we fail to heed it and drift further into sterile and divisive conflict, we shall all be the poorer for it, and we shall not, in the end, be worthy of our heritage.