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SPIRIT OF 1776
the first
anti-colonialist
revolution
TREASURES
OF
WORLD ART112
United States
Youth with a rose
During the 18th and early 19th century America developed an art that strongly reflected the life of thetimes. Much of it was the achievement of self-taught painters. In works outstanding for their home¬spun beauty and decorative qualities these artists compiled a memorable record of the Americanpast : scenes from everyday life, views of the countryside and towns of the New World before theindustrial age and portraits that are sometimes spiced with a mischievous touch of caricature. Thisearly American portrait of a youth holding a rose was painted about 1710 by an unknown artist.
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CourierJULY 1976 29TH YEAR
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Page
AMERICA'S SPIRIT OF 1776
By Henry Steele Commager
9 AMERICANS AS THEY SEE THE UNITED STATESBy Robin W. Winks
10 AMERICA'S NOBEL LAUREATES OF LITERATURE
12 AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN FARMING
Photo story
14 TWO ARCHITECTS OF INDEPENDENCE:THOMAS JEFFERSON AND BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
15 ABOUT THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
A Scriptographic presentation
20 THOMAS PAINE
A reappraisal of "Common Sense", the most extraordinarypamphlet of the American Revolution
By Bernard Bailyn
23 FOUR PAGES IN FULL COLOUR
29 CITIZEN PAINE
The turbulent life of a fiery revolutionarywho proclaimed "my country is the world".By Jacques Janssens
31 'LIBERTY' IN THE MAKING
Photo story
34 A LIVING HERITAGE OF MANY CULTURESAND MANY PEOPLES
By Yen Lu Wong and Herbert Chivambo Shore
38 THE IMPORTANCE OF PRIVATE PHILANTHROPYIN THE AMERICAN ARTS
Photo story
40 THE STATE AS A PATRON OF THE ARTS
The National Endowment for the Arts
in the cultural life of the United States
By Nancy Hanks
44 U.S.A. : THE CONTINUING REVOLUTION
By William W. Davenport
2 TREASURES OF WORLD ART
UNITED STATES: Youth with a rose
Covers
Front cover shows portion of a flag of 1776which according to one tradition maybe the first Stars and Stripes in American
history (but this is hotly contested byothers). It has 13 red and white stripesand 13 stars on a blue background, sym¬bolizing the 13 states which then consti¬
tuted the United States of America. Todaythe U.S.A. has 50 states.
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Back cover shows giant torch of Statue
of Liberty in New York harbour undergoinga major cleaning and overhaul job under¬taken for the Bicentennial of the United
States. Note workman perilously perchedon tip of torch which can now be seen at
a much greater distance at night. Eachyear the Statue attracts a million visitors.
See photo story pages 31 to 33.
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Photo f Museum of Fine Arts. Springfield. Mass. The Morgan Wesson Memorial Collection
This issue of the "Unesco
Courier" marks thebicentennial of the American
Declaration of Independenceon 4 July 1776 and thefounding of the UnitedStates as an independentnation. This was the firstanti-colonial revolution of
modern times and preparedthe way for the FrenchRevolution thirteen yearslater. Articles and photostories look retrospectivelyat some of the majorhistoric events and
personalities of theAmerican Revolution 200
years ago and in theperspective of the Americanpeople today.
AMERICA'S
SPIRIT OF 1776by Henry Steele Commager
HENRY STEELE COMMAGER is one ol the most distinguished scholars on Americanhistory at work today. Since 1930 when he published his first major work The Growth of theAmerican Republic (written in collaboration with the late Samuel Eliot Morison) he has produceda regular flow of major contributions to the literature of American history. Notable among hispublications are a monumental source book Documents of American History (1934) which heedited (also with S.E. Morison) and the classic America : Story of a Free People (1942) writtenwith Allan Nevlns. Professor of American History at Amherst College (Mass.) since 1956. hehas held many academic posts at universities ¡n the United States and elsewhere. This articlehas been condensed from "The Revolution as a World Ideal", first published In Saturday Reviewof 13 December 1975.
SKYSCRAPERS OF YESTERDAY AND TODAY. Left, "Historical Monument
of the American Republic", painted about 1876 by Erastus Salisbury Field tocelebrate the first centenary of the United States. In this huge canvas(4 m. x 3 m.) the artist filled almost every inch of each of its ten towerswith dazzling representations of the important figures, events and texts ofAmerican history from the earliest periods onwards. On the second towerfrom the right. Field depicted historic incidents in the American Revolution.Linking the tops of the 150-metre "skyscrapers" is a steam railway on whicha half dozen steam engines are merrily puffing away. Field began hismonumental work in réponse to a competition for the design of the centralbuilding at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876. He hoped that hismonument would one day be constructed. Below, towers of 197660-story office and residential blocks in Marina City, Chicago.
THE men who fought the Revo¬lution and created the new
American nation were children of the
Enlightenment. They shared the En¬lightenment conviction that mankindwas one, that men were everywherealike subject to the same laws, res¬ponding to the same impulses, animat¬ed by the same passions, and enti¬tled to the same rights.
They believed in the sovereignty ofreason and in the universality ofthose laws which reason could com¬
mand and in the ability to achievethose ends which reason dictated as
just and sound. When they set up theirown commonwealths, they basedthese on laws they thought universaland permanent; and they took it for,granted that men and nations every¬where must eventually follow wherethey led.
With Patrick Henry they were con¬fident that America had "lighted thecandle to all the world." With John
Adams they rejoiced that the Revolu¬tion was fought "for future millions,and millions of millions," and that itwould "spread Liberty and Enlight¬enment everywhere in the world".
No one else proclaimed this gospelmore insistently than Thomas Jeffer¬son. "We feel," he wrote to his friendJoseph Priestley, "that we are actingunder obligations not confined to thelimits of our own society. It is impos¬sible not to be sensible that we are
acting for all mankind."
And he struck that note again in hislast letter: it was his salute to the "Ar¬
gonauts" who had launched the Dec¬laration and the nation: "May it be tothe world... the signal of arousing mento burst the chains under which mon
kish ignorance and superstition hadpersuaded them to bind themselves,and to assume the blessings andsecurity of self-government... All eyesare opened, or opening, to the rightsof man.
"The general spread of the lightof science has already laid open toevery view the palpable truth that themass of mankind has not been born
with saddles on their backs, nor a
favoured few booted and spurred,ready to ride them legitimately, by thegrace of God."
It is sobering to reflect that in cele¬brating both the Centennial and theBicentennial of the Revolution, Am¬ericans have been content to substi¬
tute rhetoric for policy and have evenbeen willing to permit the. policy tobetray the rhetoric. The Revolutionary ^generation translated its rhetoric ther
UÑáSc<J>5
^term is inadequate not only intopolicy but also into institutions.
Nothing, indeed, was more impres¬sive in that generation than its ability"to realize the writings of the wisestwriters" that is, to take ideas and
principles to which philosophers hadsubscribed for centuries and institu¬
tionalize them.
As the Founding Fathers drew uponthe great heritage of the past, fromGreece to 17th century England, fortheir inspiration, so they contrivedinstitutions that were valid everywhereand that spread over the globe.
First they created a nation some¬thing no other people had ever donebefore, for heretofore nations had
simply grown. And they did so with¬out benefit of all the insignia and stig¬mata of Old World nationalism a
monarch, a ruling class, an establish¬ed church, an army and navy, and evena historical past. What is more, theycast the nation into Republican form
something Montesquieu had assert¬ed was impossible except in a smallterritory or a city-state.
They solved, almost overnight, twoof the most intractable problems inthe history of government: colonialismand federalism. No Old World nation
had known what to do with colonies
except to exploit them for the benefitof the mother country. The new Uni¬ted States was born the largest nationin the Western world and was, from
the beginning and throughout the 19thcentury, a great colonizing power witha hinterland that stretched westward
to the Mississippi and, eventually, tothe Pacific.
BY the simple device of trans¬forming "colonies" into states,
and admitting these states into theunion on the basis of absolute equa¬
lity with the original states, the Found¬ing Fathers taught the world a lessonwhich it has learned only slowly andpainfully down to our own day.
' That generation solved, too, theproblem of federalism a problem thathad baffled statesmen in the ancient
Greek confederacies, in medieval Ita¬
ly of the Lombard League, in the con¬federations of Helvetica and of the
Low Countries, in the Holy RomanEmpire, and in the British Empire. Inlittle more than a decade, Americans
worked out the proper principles offederalism and welded together a fed¬eral union which is today the oldestand the most successful in history.
They had declared that all govern¬ment derives its powers from the con¬sent of the governed a principle an-'cient in history but never before trans
lated into practice and one which,even today, is not generally conceded.How were the governed to give their"consent": how were they to "alteror abolish" government and "insti¬tute" new government?
Nowhere else on the globe exceptperhaps in some of the Swiss cantonshad the principle of democracy beeninstitutionalized. The Founding Fathersinvented the constitutional convention
as the appropriate instrument for mak¬ing, altering, abolishing, and remakinggovernment; that is, they legalizedrevolution. And, like federalism, the
constitutional convention has spreadthroughout the globe.
For the first time, too, the Americans
institutionalized the familiar principlethat government was limited. As lateas 1766 the British Parliament had pro¬claimed the right to bind the colonies"in all cases whatsoever", and it wasa commonplace of history that kingsand princes had the right to bind theirsubjects.
But the Founding Fathers insistedthat no government had all power, andthey proceeded, then, to place ongovernment such checks, balances, li¬mits, restrictions, and prohibitions aswould make sure that government couldnot indeed exercise any powers butthose assigned to it by the people.
What a congeries of inventions anddevices to achieve this end: written
constitutions, the federal system, theseparation of powers, bicameral legis¬latures, annual elections, and, to topthem all, bills of rights that were partof fundamental law and that protectedmen in their freedom of religion, ofspeech, of the press, and of assembly
something not even the English Billsof Rights attempted to do.
This principle, too that governmentwas limited spread into every conti¬nent. It has not conquered the globe,and it is competing, even now, for theallegiance of men everywhere. Butthat the area of freedom is larger to¬
day than it was in 1776 owes some¬thing to the American demonstrationthat men can make and that men can
limit government.
Thus this generation incomparablythe most creative in American history
was responsible for launching themost important political institutions ofmodern history: the constitutional con¬vention, the written constitution, fed¬
eralism, the co-ordinate state, limited
government, substantive bills of rights,judicial review, and even the politicalparty (for the parties that emerged inthe 1790s have some claim to be the
first modern parties in history). Equal¬ly significant and equally influential
were the innovations in the realm of
social institutions.
Thus for the first time, Americans of
the Revolutionary generation not onlyestablished complete religious tolera¬tion but also separated church andstate with its corollary principle ofvoluntarism in religion.
Thus for the first time in modern
history they formally subordinatedthe military to the civilian authority.They realized the principle that menwere "created equal" in a larger mea¬sure than did any other Western so¬ciety, though they failed, tragically, toextend that principle to blacks: theirfailure here was a failure not so much
of leadership as of following.
It is sobering to reflect that theirsuccessors did not solve this prob¬lem until almost a century later, andthen by violence, and that anothercentury was to elapse before Ameri¬
cans were prepared to concede even
formal equality to the black race.
IT was good fortune rather thanprinciple which accounted for a
greater degree of material well-beingin the early Republic than could befound elsewhere on the globe, but itwas principle that made that goodfortune available to almost all who
were white and that kept open thedoors for the peoples of the OldWorld.
And, to assure the continuation ofall this, Americans embarked upon
what we may call, for want of a bettername, the Jeffersonian programme ofthe conquest of ignorance by provid¬ing schools and colleges on a lavishscale open to'all. Americans encour¬aged learning and science by estab¬lishing freedom of the press; theywere even so romantic as to write
guarantees of happiness into theirConstitution.
In all this the Founding Fathers
were animated by a sense of obliga¬tion, and of mission, not only to the
peoples of the world but also to pos¬terity. It was for posterity that theyfought and planned and built; it wasthe needs of posterity that were cons¬tantly uppermost in their minds. Thisconcern was sometimes exaggerated
as it was in Jefferson's "land
enough for our descendants to thethousandth and ten-thousandth gen¬
eration," but it was never merelyrhetorical.
Nowhere else is the contrast bet¬
ween the Revolutionary generationand our own non-revolutionary (orcounter-revolutionary) generation moreconspicuous than in the. passing, ofthe sense of fiduciary obligation. Wegive lip service to posterity, but byplundering the natural resources ofland and water, recklessly pollutingthe environment, building immense
6
Giant heads of four American presidents gaze out over the peaks and valleys inthe Black Hills region of South Dakota (U.S.A.). Carved from the granite cliff faceof the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, they portray, from left to right,George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham .Lincoln. Each is about the height of a five-storey building. An Americansculptor, Gutzon Borglum, designed and supervised the work on the memoriala monument to the building of the United States for 14 years until his deathin 1941, and it was completed by his son.
nuclear armaments, fostering racialand national animosities, and pilingup almost limitless debts, we systema¬tically betray it.
The American Revolution was a
catalytic agent everywhere in theWestern world. "All Europe is on ourside," wrote Franklin with pardon¬able exaggeration from Paris. Cer¬tainly, all the European liberals wereon the American side even in Brit¬
ain, even in British Hanover. The war
divided British opinion as sharply asthe Vietnam War divided American,
but its opponents were more outspo
ken and more courageous than werethe opponents of the destruction ofVietnam and Cambodia.
English philosophes like Dr. Priceand Dr.. Priestley openly championedthe American cause; statesmen like
Chatham and Shelburne, Rockinghamand Grafton, warned that Britain goingto war was folly.
The war, the American victory, andthe American example immensely sti¬mulated popular efforts to reform theBritish political system to broadenthe suffrage, end the scandal of rottenboroughs, and encourage annual meet
ings of Parliament: all in vain, for thealmost paranoid reaction against theFrench Revolution, which found classicexpression in Edmund Burke's "Re¬flections", inaugurated something likea reign of terror in Britain.
Elsewhere, too, the American exam¬
ple was infectious: in France, whereJefferson helped draft the Declarationof the Rights of Man and where TomPaine served in the constituent assem¬
bly; in Italy, where the fiery Alfiericelebrated the American cause in five
odes to liberty and countless dramas;in the Netherlands, where stout revo¬
lutionaries like van der Capellen andvan der Kemp fought again in vainto reconstruct the aristocratic govern¬ment of those provinces; in the Ger-manies, where Christoph Ebeling wascertain that "America must give anexample to the world"; even in des¬potic Denmark, where, as Henrik Stef¬
fens remembered, "all the ships flewflags and pennants and every shipwith cannon saluted the new nation."
Nor was the influence of the Revo¬
lution confined to the Old World. The
struggle for the independence of LatinAmerica derived more from the French
than from the American Revolution,
but the Latin Americans knew, afterall, that the French Revolution had
ended in the despotism of a Napoleonand the American in the birth of a free
republic, and it was the Americanexample they sought to emulate.
And the power of that example wasto emerge again and again on thestage of history, even into our owntime, when both Rhodesia and North
Vietnam borrowed the language, if notthe spirit, of the Declaration of Inde¬pendence, to justify their own revo¬lutions.
Revolution, independence, nation-making, new political institutions allthese set examples and standardswhich excited and encouraged imita¬
tion around the globe. More impor¬tant, however, was the impact of whatwas going on in the great social andeconomic laboratory of America thespectacle not only of successful self-government but also of economic op¬portunity and social equality and reli¬gious liberty and the potentialities ofprivate voluntary associations, allavailable to ordinary men and women.
What excited Europeans in the 19thcentury was what had excited theFounding Fathers in the 18th thechance to escape from Europe and tocreate a new order of society.
. The American farmer, Hector St.
John de Crèvec saw this at the
very outset of the American experi¬ment. The European, he said, be¬comes an American "by being receiv-r
7
Led in the broad lap of our great AlmaMater. Here individuals of all nations
are melted into a new race of men,
whose labours and posterity will oneday cause great changes in the world.Americans are the Western pilgrimswho are carrying along with them thatgreat mass of arts, sciences, vigour,and industry which began long sincein the east; they will finish the greatcircle."
And he added what was to be of
crucial importance in transforming theEuropean into the American, that"Europe contains hardly any otherdistinctions but lords and tenants;this fair country alone is settled byfreeholders, the possessors of the soilthey cultivate, members of the govern¬ment they obey, and framers of their
own laws... There is room for every¬body in America... Instead of starv¬
ing he will be fed; instead of beingidle he will have employment; andthese are riches enough for such menas come over."
What Crèvecaur described becamethe stuff of Tocqueville's philosophy:that equalityhe used the term demo¬
cracy the distinguishing fea¬ture of American life and that it was,if not precisely the mission, then thedestiny of America, by her exampleand by her attraction, to spreadequality throughout the Old World.
In these analyses both Crèvecand Tocqueville left out slavery (theywere to recognize and lament that
curse elsewhere in their writings), butin their recognition that the AmericanRevolution meantwhat its motto pro¬claimed a new order of the ages(novus ordo saeclorum) socially andmorally as well as politically, theywere one with the Americans who hadcarried through both revolutions.
There is an elegiac quality about allthis. We are no longer a revolutionarypeople. We are no longer creative inpolitics and government; every majorpolitical institution that we have todaywas invented before 1800; none hasbeen invented since then.
We no longer open our doors tothe poor and the oppressed of theworld. We no longer think of ourmission as primarily that of lifting theburdens from the shoulders of men,and when we undertake to spreadour way of life, it is through force, notthrough moral example.
Perhaps a realization of what weonce stood for, what we once accom¬
plished, and what we once meant to
mankind may yet lead us back tothose paths which we were the firstto tread. Listen to Tom Paine, as herejoices in the triumph of "the great-
Photo Abigail Heyman © Magnum, Pans
A strong emphasis on all kinds or sports and athletics and an easy informality instudent-teacher relations are characteristic features of university and college lifein the United States. Above, this teenage college girl is an enthusiastic footballplayer. Opposite page, student meeting at an American university. The subjectmay be serious but the atmosphere is casual and relaxed. The 2,800 U.S. universitiesand other centres of higher education have a total enrollment of 10 millionstudents of whom almost half are women. About 45% of the 20 to 24 age group inthe U.S.A. are today taking higher education courses which offer some 1,600types of degrees. .
est and completest revolution the
world ever knew, gloriously and hap¬pily accomplished":
"Never had a country so manyopenings to happiness as this. Hersetting out in life, like the rising of afair morning, was unclouded and pro¬mising. Her cause was good. Herprinciples just and liberal. Her temperserene and firm. Her conduct regulat¬ed by the nicest steps, and everythingabout her wore the mark of honour.
It is not every country that can boastso fair an origin."
Henry Steele Commager
8
Photo Dave Repp (O Parimage, Paris
by Robin W. Winks
AMERICANS
AS THEY SEE
THE UNITED STATES
ROBIN W. WINKS, U.S. historian andeducator, is a leading authority on thehistory ol North America to which he hasdevoted many books and studies. He ¡sProlessor of History at Yale University,where he has been a member of the facultysince 1957. Among his most recent publishedworks are The American Experience (1970),The Myth of the American Frontier (1971)and Slavery (1972).
THIS is the year of the Bicenten¬nial of the United States, when
Americans celebrate their two hun¬
dredth national birthday. As they doso, most Americans see their nationas at a crossroads, at once strongand innovative, yet beleaguered andsuffering.
In the tension between these oppos¬ing views, many Americans feel theydetect the very source of America'scontinuing vitality: a tension betweengoals, between regions, and between
conceptions of the past and thepresent.
The United States came into beingby an act of revolution, and accordingto accepted American scripture, in asingle moment in time: on 4 July1776. Most nations see themselves as
the product of evolutionary forces, andwhile all have conventionally agreedupon dates on which they" celebratetheir national holidays, very few would
profess to identify the precise moment |in time when they became a nation.!
9
AMERICA'S NOBEL
LAUREATES
OF LITERATUREA total of over 450 Nobel Prizes have been awar¬
ded since 1901 for outstanding contributions to"the good of humanity" in physics, chemistry,physiology and medicine, literature, peace and(since 1969) economics. Of these awards morethan 120 have gone to laureates from the UnitedStates. Nobel Prizes were created under the
terms of the will of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) theSwedish chemist, engineer and philanthropist.Americans lead the field in physics (with 32laureates out of 100 awards between 1901 and
1974), physiology and medicine (41 laureates outof 112) and peace (17 laureates out of 71). Onright we present a gallery of America's 6 NobelPrizewinners in literature.
SINCLAIR LEWIS - 1930
First American Nobel laureate for
literature. Accomplished observer
of the American scene, Lewis used
withering satire to expose what hesaw as weaknesses in American
society. He won an international
reputation with novels such as
Main Street (1920) and Babbit (1922).
EUGENE O' NEILL - 1936
Many of this great dramatist's 45
plays reflect his sympathy for
society's failures and outcasts.O'Neill stated that his task as a
playwright was to "dig at theroots of the sickness of today''and examined the predicament ofmodern man in such world-famous
plays as The Iceman Cometh(1946) and Long Day's Journey
into Night (produced in 1956).
In a sense, Americans are assert¬ing that the United States was afacf at the moment of its assertion,for the two hundred years they cele¬brate date from the Declaration of
Independence in 1776, not from eitherthe peace settlement of 1783 or theformal ratification of the Constitution
in 1788.
Most nations celebrate the assump¬tion of. nationhood in the moment of
constitution making; Americans, bycelebrating the declaration of theirindependence before it was an accom¬plished fact, continue to attest to thevitality of the revolutionary traditionin their history.
Americans are increasingly aware,as well, that they are celebrating anexceptional period of political stability.In truth, few nations in the world areolder than the United States, in poli¬tical terms, and while Americans mayspeak of their relative youthfulnessculturally they now celebrate anexceptional antiquity politically.
Great Britain, Switzerland, Sweden,Denmark perhaps these may tracetheir political continuity over morethan two centuries from an unchangedconstitution. But most of the nations
of the world have passed throughThird Reichs, Fourth Republics, andFifth Empires, while the United Stateshas continued to thrive under one
of the world's oldest constitutional
documents.
For this stability, Americans feelthey have much rightfully to cele¬brate in 1776. They feel that, in gen¬eral, nations are of three types: thosethat imitate the goals of others; thosethat have achieved their goals andlack the vitality to define new ones,so that though once dynamic theybecome increasingly conservative intheir defence of the goals already
achieved; and those nations that havedefined for themselves goals so dyna¬mic and so attractive as both to con¬
tinue to energize their citizenry and tobe the object of imitation by others.
Most Americans feel that the United
States is an example of this third typeof nation, while an increasing numbermay, on this Bicentennial occasion,be fearful that their nation is slippinginto the stance of the second type ofnation, defending the past ratherthan continuing to seek out the future.
To be sure, most Americans recog¬nize the inherent tension between the
national goals they so clearly statedin 1776 and again in the Constitution,and the continued effort to make those
goals real In the lives of all Americans.
Few nations have so boldly declaredtheir national course that all men
be guaranteed equality of opportunityin their pursuit of life, liberty, and hap¬piness and have so openly admittedto the world their own shortcomings.
Yet most Americans also recognizethat in revealing their shortcomingsto the world, they also give testimonythat theirs is a truly open society.All Americans can take pride, paradox¬ical as it may be, in the fact that themost anti-American information avail¬
able to the world is information pro¬vided by America's own free press.
Some Americans also have come to
sense the making of another paradox,as the media make known even the
minutiae of American daily life, andfeed back to the American an aware¬
ness of world feeling about the UnitedStates. Much that we once were
inclined to see as anti-American¬
ism, we now realize is the disappoint¬ment of those who are (or were) ourfriends, who are unhappy that we havenot become that which they expectedus to be.
Those Europeans who in the nine¬teenth century thought that the UnitedStates had an opportunity to avoidLeviathan, to forestall the rise of com¬plex government, to preserve a pris¬tine environment and to solve social
ills before they occurred, are disap¬pointed to find that the United Statesdid not succeed in escaping history.
But as Americans contemplate theirtwo hundred years of history, manyrecognize that the United States hasnever had any obligation to becomewhat others wished it to be after
all, a nation's goals grow from itssoil, its people, and their experiences,and they should not be borrowed fromthe expectations of others.
In this sober paradox, many Am¬ericans sense that this is a time less
for celebration than for introspectiona time to ask what has been accom¬
plished, and what remains to be done,and how best one must move the
nation toward the goals alreadyso clearly, publicly, and long agodefined.
In this mood of contemplation, manyAmericans sense, too, that the UnitedStates is experiencing a number ofprofound changes. Three of thesechanges are so profound as virtuallyto make certain that the American five
decades hence will be a very differentperson to the American of today.
The first of these changes is thedecline of the old, innovative influenceof the frontier in American life. While
Americans still enjoy a physical andsocial mobility found in few if anyother societies, the mobility-factor intheir society is less significant todaythan it was even two decades ago.
There is no longer a distinct fron¬tier on which social and politicalexperiments are possible. That fron¬tier helped make Americans the para¬dox they became: aggressive, opti-
10
PEARL S. BUCK - 1938
Awarded the Nobel Prize for her
novels and biographies. Her manybooks such as The Good Earth
(1931) have been widely translated.
They show her keen understand¬
ing of China and the Chinese
people gained from living there
for many years.
f^
WILLIAM FAULKNER - 1949
Won international fame for his no¬
vels about the fictional "Yoknapa-
tawpha County", based on the areaaround his home town of Oxford,
Mississippi. In many books such
as The Sound and the Fury (1929)
Faulkner explored the traditions
and history of the Deep South,stressing "the eternal verities''
such as love, honour, pity, pride
and compassion.
ERNEST HEMINGWAY - 1954
Hemingway's crisp, colloquial styleand his stories and novels reflect¬
ing the ideals of courage, enduran¬ce and honour had an enormous
influence on world literature. His
early novels The Sun Also Rises
(1926) and A Farewell to Arms
(1929) brought him international
recognition. His last major work was
The Old Man and the Sea (1952).
JOHN STEINBECK - 1962
Most of his novels are set in Cali¬
fornia and depict with realism and
sympathy the plight of the poor and
downtrodden. The Grapes of Wrath
(1939) about the migration of a
dispossessed family from Oklahomato California has been called "the
20th-century Uncle Tom's Cabin".Among his famous novels are Ot
Mice and Men (1937), Tortilla Flat
(1935) and Cannery Row (1944).
mistic, materialistic, philanthropic,wasteful!
(To be sure, in one sense the fron¬tier continues to operate through theAmerican federal structure, for eachstate can be a social laboratory,experimenting with legislation longbefore the nation as a whole need
embark on an untried legislative path.)
The second of the clearly obviouschanges is in the gradual erosion ofa faith in universal economic abund¬
ance. Once the future seemed not
only big with blessings but thereseemed genuinely to be enough forall if one did not prosper, this failurewas laid to laziness, or perhaps badluck, but not to the structure ofsociety.
If there were not "jam today" therewould be "jam tomorrow", for Am¬erican history lay in the future, in thepresence of natural economic abun¬dance. Increasingly today Americanssense that economic abundance is at
risk, and that to protect it may requirethe continued intervention of the biggovernment most instinctively suspectof wishing to curtail local liberties.
The tension between the need for
predictive capacity in the economy,and thus planning, and the olderconventional wisdoms of free enter¬
prise, is a tension that all can feel.This tension may also be healthy, pro¬ductive of a dynamic society, provid¬ed a balance can be struck.
The third change in American lifeis the most obvious of all. Americans
once enjoyed an unprecedented na¬tional security, free of charge. Sep¬arated by two great oceans from mostpotential enemies, the United Statesdid not need to put large portions ofits national income into national
defence. There were no American
Maginot Lines, standing armies, orentangling alliances.
Between 1815, when the last Britishtroops left Louisiana, and 1942, whenthe first Japanese troops put ashorein the Aleutian Island chain-off Alaska,the United States was free of extra-
continental invasion. Few nations
have enjoyed 125 years of securitythat was free of cost.
The United States no longer doesso either, as defence looms large inthe national budget. The awarenessthat security is not without cost, finan¬cial and moral, is also central to thisBicentennial year.
But if Americans are contemplative,sober, even nostalgic for a simplerpast, they also recognize that theyneed not apologize for the main sweepof their history. Americans know thatthey have made mistakes and theyrecognize that their mistakes countheavily in the world's scales, for acountry that looms so large on theworld scene can have a staggeringimpact when it stumbles.
Yet most Americans, however criti¬cal they may be of their own nation,also believe that the world is a better
place for two hundred years of Am¬erican history. Can anyone but themost committed ideologue truly be¬lieve that the world would be a freer
place today had there been no UnitedStates for these two centuries?
As Americans look back over their
secular scripture, they have reason tobe pleased that theirs is an entrench¬ed Bill of Rights. Many nations havebills of rights today; virtually none areentrenched. Recent demonstrations
that no one may successfully maintainthat they are above the law empha¬sizes anew that this is a governmentof laws not men.
The continuing flurry of primaryelections at the state level, prepara¬tory to the national election, remindsAmericans that their government truly
rests upon the consent of the govern¬ed. Since no one may assign thatconsent to another, the right beingtruly inalienable, Americans are evermore aware that, no matter how ex¬pensive their elective process, it isstill one that works. To fail to exer¬
cise one's consent is to commit a
form of intellectual treason againstthe nation. r
Of course, Americans are puzzledtoday, as they were in 1776, by theproblems of foreign policy. Somewish the world would go away. Un¬happily, as a nation Americans risksinking further into a parochial ina¬bility to speak the language of others.
Fewer and fewer students study aforeign language; the number of Am¬erican students studying abroad hasbeen cut in half in three years; manyargue that, since the world speaksEnglish, one need learn no other lan¬guage, thus missing the important ifsubtle point that a culture can beunderstood only in its own termsliterally, in its own language. Still, theworld will not go away and intelligentAmericans know it.
What, then, do Americans want ofthe world? Once It was said that
Americans wanted to be liked. Theycomplain that they are tired of beingtold that they must understand theproblems of country x or y, when fewthey feel attempt to understand theirproblems.
They are a bit weary of self-styledexperts on America who in a fewsentences reveal that they do not un¬derstand how the federal systemworks, or how American regions haveretained their identities, or even what
the Constitution says.
They would like more serious studyof American history and literature bystudents and scholars abroad, so that
CONTINUED PAGE 47
11
\ .\^..\ \P «K.rHV/ /.../ ^£H ' ¿-r' /i/ /iii /
. ^~.à , -....~^ .... *.**
. . .
* ' ' ' >p
» ir" s i
AMERICAN REVOLUTION IN FARMING
In 1776, 90% of Americans were work¬
ing on farms. Nowadays only 5% arefarming. But this 5% on today's in¬
dustrialized farms produce enoughfood for the entire U.S. population andmillions of tons for other countries
too. (1 ) Science and technology haverevolutionized U.S. farming since thisveteran farmer and his wife began to
work the land some 50 years ago. At
that time one worker produced enoughto feed 10 persons. Today a single U.S.farm worker supplies the food needs
of about 45 persons. (2) Scientific
methods of farming and machines suchas the giant harvester, operated hereby a relaxed and smiling girl, have
boosted production tremendously. (3-4) Piloting his own mini gyrocopter, amodern flying farmer takes to the air.
Within minutes he can survey the wholeof his vast expanse of crops. (5) Sittingin his ranch house, a U.S. cattleman
uses closed-circuit TV and two-wayintercom to check on the condition of
one of his calves. Hisultra-modern ranch
has its own computer and laboratory.
13
TWO ARCHITECTS
OF INDEPENDENCE
The photo on right is a detail of afamous painting showing the sign¬ing of the Declaration of Indepen¬dence, in Independence Hall, Phila¬delphia, in 1776. Painted by theAmerican artist John Trumbull, itshows some of the most distin¬
guished figures in the Americanstruggle for independence. The de¬tail now figures on five U.S. Bicen¬tennial commemoration stamps pre¬sented on a single sheet. Above, oneof these stamps depicting twogiants of American independence,Thomas Jefferson (left) and Benja¬min Frank/in. Thomas Jefferson was
chiefly responsible for the draftingof the Declaration. A brief pen por¬trait of his life and works is givenbelow and that of Franklin on p. 19.
1. Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, author of theDeclaration of Independence and third Presidentof the United States, is a remarkable example ofa man of action whose talents were also medita¬
tive and philosophical. Two modern historians
have called him "the special symbol of the Ame¬rican Revolution" because "His was a perpetualrevolt, an eternal declaration of independence,against the forces which sought, and seek, tobind the spirits of men".
He was a universal man on the Renaissance
model, the immense range of his activities encom¬passing mathematics, music (he was an accom¬plished violinist), architecture, astronomy, meteo¬rology, the natural sciences, linguistics (he knewhalf a dozen languages and wrote vocabularies ofIndian languages) and scientific farming. All thisin addition to history, politics and education aboutwhich he wrote with originality and insight.
Writer and political philosopher
All his life Jefferson fought with his pen against"every tyranny over the mind of man". With hisfirst published work, A Summary View ot theRights ol British America (1774) a pamphletattacking British intransigence toward the Colo¬
nies, he earned a reputation for phrase-makingand polished writing.
Two years later, although only 33 years of age,he was entrusted by the Continental Congress ofthe American colonies with the task of draftingthe Declaration of Independence because of hisgifts for expressing lucidly and vividly thethoughts of everyone.
He wrote many state papers of the first impor¬tance, such as his Wofes on the Establishment of
a Money Unit, successfully advocating the adop¬tion of the system of dollars and cents. His
Wofes on Virginia (1782) contain a mass of originalnatural observations as well as a statement of hisbeliefs and ¡deals.
The statesman
Jefferson's long life of public service as re¬forming Virginia lawmaker, Governor of Virginia,Congressman, U.S. Minister in France, Secretaryof State, and Vice-President was crowned bytwo terms as President (1801-1809). His greataim throughout this career was to give individualmen a wider liberty. To this end he (and JamesMadison) successfully urged that a Bill of Rightsguaranteeing fundamental freedoms for every citi¬zen be added to the Constitution.
These are the first ten amendments to the
Constitution, which guarantee freedom of religion,freedom of speech and press, freedom of assem¬
bly, freedom from self-incrimination, trial by jury,and other rights.
He was a major architect of American expan¬sion to the west. In 1784 he wrote a report onthe government of the land west of the Appala-
c 5<
o-SS
Engraving of a lost portrait of Jeffersonby his friend Thaddeus Kosciuszko,painted from life in Philadelphia in 1798.Kosciuszko (1746-1817) was a Polisharmy officer and statesman who servedwith great distinction as a volunteer inthe War of Independence.
A few volumes in Jefferson's collection
of over 6,400 books. Sold to Congress in1815, his library became the nucleus ofthe Library of Congress.
chian mountains which has been ranked second
only to the Declaration of Independence in hiswritings. Had it been adopted as he presentedit, slavery would have been forbidden in all thoselands after 1800. But it is to be noted that
Jefferson accepted slavery in the original colonies,and his plan for "general enlightenment" exclud¬ed girls.
As President in 1803 he approved the purchasefrom France of the Louisiana Territory. The ac¬quisition of this vast region between the Missi¬
ssippi and the Rocky Mountains nearly doubledthe size of the United States. He initiated and
planned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark's
pioneering overland expedition (1804-1806) to the
Pacific coast and back which helped pave theway for the settlement of the west.
Scientist, architect and inventor
Modern scholars have recognized Jefferson asan American pioneer in many branches of science,notably paleontology, ethnology, geography andbotany. He was President of the American Philo¬
sophical Society from 1797 to 1815 and corres¬ponded throughout his life with an extraordinarynumber of scientists and philosophers.
He was also the foremost American architect
of his time. Monticello, the mansion he built on
his Virginia estate between 1768 and 1809 contains
an array of ingenious gadgets invented byJefferson: an improved copying device called a"polygraph"; a weathervane connected to a dialon the ceiling beneath; the swivel chair; a systemof pulleys and an enclosure in the ceiling intowhich he could hoist his bed after he got up; aseven-day clock. His invention of an improvedplough won wide recognition.
Crusader for education
Jefferson's passionate commitment to intellec¬
tual freedom also stands out in his fight foreducation and in the Statute of Virginia (1786)which he drafted. The Statute forbade all reli¬
gious discrimination in Virginia and formed partof a broad-ranging plan of reforms proposed byJefferson for his home state. Part of his planwas a comprehensive system of free public edu¬cation, but his fellow Virginians accepted onlyhis proposal for a university.
After retiring from the presidency In 1809Jefferson devoted the rest of his public life tocreating the new university. He designed thebuildings and supervised their construction inminute detail, as well as planning the courses,recruiting the teachers and choosing the booksfor the library. The University of Virginia openedin 1825. Jefferson died on 4 July 1826the fiftiethanniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
14 CONTINUED PAGE 19
ABOUT 4*»e
DECLARATION
The Declaration of Independence of the United States is one of the world's greatdocuments on freedom and human rights. On the following pages we presentmajor portions of the Declaration accompanied by special explanatory notes andcommentaries. We hope this presentation will be of interest to younger and olderreaders alike. This text is a condensation from the booklet "About the Declaration
of Independence", a Scriptographic Booklet published by the Channing L. Bete Co.Inc. 45 Federal Street, Greenfield, Mass., U.S.A. 01301 © 1969. It appears with thepermission of the publisher from whom a copy of the complete booklet is availablefor $1.00 (prepaid).
Wkat IS *U&
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emphasizes thatindependence wasnecessary -thecolonists kad to
-form "3 n&id
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/*\
AAahes clear
-to the world
(including othernations who miijht
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'móeper\¿er\cCunt i I -forced to .
ht CONGRESS,July 4> 1776'fthe uncw,imousl^edqrfl.tioyi
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the separateColonies, which
trad quarreledDwonO) themselves,'fhe delegates hnew
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Me^ and nations
equal inVatural law" -as
opposed to "man-made law "and
are entitled to the
63rr\e, political-freedorn (hence,r\o titles such as
^ fr'incCjPuke, etc.)
/eaois -fo 3
SUMMARYof-fbe.
PRitfdPlBS of
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17
A SUMMARYof-rtte
PRINCIPLES of DEMOCRACY
/>
not open toargument
human rights^re 3n
obviouS
-fact.
the purpose,of ^ov/ernrnentS
tô to
safeguardindividual
-freedom-
/!NPeople have 3responsibility
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to ¿o away with
bad jjovemmnen-i"-for -the good of
the ima \ority.
We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all
men are Created equal ;/that they are endowedby their creator with certain unalienable rights ;
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness ; that to secure these rights, govern¬
ments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed ;
that whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the
people to alter or abolish it/and to institute newgovernment., laying its foundation on such princi¬
ples, and organizing its powers in such form, as
to them shall seem most likely to effect their sa¬
fety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate
that governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes ; and, ac¬
cordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind
are more disposed to suffer while evils are suffer-
able, than to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed. But when a
long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing in¬
variably the same object, evinces a design to re¬
duce them under absolute despotism, it is their
right, it is their duty, to throw off such govern¬
ment and to provide new guards for their future
security. Such has been the patient sufferance of
these colonies ; and such is now the necessity
which constrains them to alter their former sys¬
tems of government...
no King orParliament-has anyr«9h+ toreduce themor take
them away.
any
government
-that doesn't
uphold theserights
iS unjust'Snd should
be changed.
f\
/Werican^have carefully
considered their
decision no-
w$r»ap judgments!'
O HUMA») Q NATURAL. LAW ©MAJofUTYRIGHTS
the importance ofhuman rights over
divine right the
"The Americans believed |3 BASIC IDEAS L
applied +0 people I People's rights be,n \ fore the King's.
all QotfCrrvmentS 3
18
Natural law an
the
important idea that17th - 18th centuries.grew up in
The theory states that the whole universe
works according to a rational plan that,
any man could discover for himself, bylooking at the world around him. Natu¬
ral law, including the individual rights to
life and liberty, is more basic and impor¬tant than man-made laws which
should be changed when they conflict.
Rute
the importance of
MAJORITY RULE - "% fAfllUAR. IDEASwhen most people I .._. tl~ , . ,iare convinced that L V\ "?" buf^ea government no f T°nJ*** w&r? f"°»3longer serves them, I +«& feepk 4o p*
'they have the right -^ "*e"'1 ,rvh> 3c«on.to change it.
TWO ARCHITECTS OF INDEPENDENCE (continued from page 14)WäSm
2. Benjamin Franklin
Ranking among the great men of American
history, Benjamin Franklin was gifted with many-sided genius and sound common sense. He
concerned himself, during a long and fruitful life
(1706-1790), with such different matters as states¬
manship and soapmaking, book-printing and cab¬
bage growing, and the rise of tides and fall of
empires. As a scientist he was a pioneer in the
study of electricity; as an inventor he was un¬
equalled in America until the second half of the
19th century.
Photo Erich Lessing © Magnum, Paris
Printer, publisher and man of letters
In 1718, at the age of 12, Franklin became an
apprentice printer under his elder brother James.
At 24 he founded and edited his own newspaper,
making it one of the most successful in the
colonies. He is believed to be first editor In
America to publish a newspaper cartoon. In 1732he launched his famous "Poor Richard's Alma-
nach" (written and published by him until 1757),noted for its wise and witty aphorisms on the
value of thrift, hard work and the simple life.
He taught himself French, Italian, Spanish andLatin, and helped to found the American Philo¬
sophical Society which brought scientists and
scholars together. Long after he had won world¬wide fame, he continued to call himself with
characteristic lack of pretension "Benjamin Fran¬klin, Printer".
Social reformer and civic leader
Franklin launched many projects for social re¬
form and for fostering a community spirit. An
' enemy of slavery he became president of thefirst anti-shivery society in America and his last
public act was to sign an appeal to Congresscalling for the speedy abolition of Negro slavery.In 1737, as Philadelphia's postmaster, he trans¬formed and speeded up its postal services (as hedid for all the colonies when he later became
deputy postmaster general).
He set up America's first subscription library InPhiladelphia. He organized a fire department and
reformed the city police. He also helped tofound an academy that grew Into the Universityof Pennsylvania. Shocked by the general lack ofconcern for the sick, he raised money to build acity hospital the first in America and to care for
the mentally ill.
Inventor and scientist j
Franklin was one of the first scientists to expe¬riment with electricity, proving in 1752 that
lightning is actually electricity (see photo this
Right, portrait ofBenjamin Franklin bythe Scottish painterDavid Martin. It was
commissioned byFranklin in London, in
1767, for his family,and bequeathed by himto the Executive
Council of
Pennsylvania.
Photo © Lt. Col. M.W. Arps Jr.,Roloo Transparency, Box 1715,Washington D.C. 20013, U.S.A.
In 1752, Franklinconducted his
famous experiment offlying a kite in athunderstorm to provelightning is electricity.He then tamed this
phenomenon of natureby inventing thelightning rod. Left,models used byFranklin in his
lightning rodexperiments. Below, anartist's impression of apossiblebut not verypractical applicationof Franklin's invention,
drawn in 1778.
Photo Boyer © Roger-Viollet. Paris
page). He became famous for his wide-rangingscientific achievements: inventions such as the
lightning rod and bifocal eyeglasses, the "Fran¬
klin Stove" which gave more warmth than open
fireplaces and used less fuel, methods of soil
improvement, use of oil to calm rough seas etc.
The Royal Society of London honoured his
entire scientific work by making him a member
in 1756, as did the French Académie des
Sciences 16 years later. He was eventually a
member of every learned society in Europe.
Statesman and diplomat
As a statesman, Franklin stood in the front
rank of the men who built the United States.
As a delegate to the Continental Congress he was
one of the chief drafters of the Declaration of
Independence (see painting page 14). He alone
signed all four of the key documents in the early
history of the United States: the Declaration of
Independence, the Treaty of Alliance with France,
the Treaty of Peace with Great Britain and the
Constitution of the United States.
Franklin's services as minister to France
helped greatly in winning the Revolutionary War.He received a tremendous welcome In Paris.
The French were charmed by his wise and witty
sayings and his tact and courtesy. Crowds ran
after him in the streets and poets wrote verses
in his honour. Many historians consider him the
ablest and most successful diplomat that America
has ever sent abroad. As early as 1754 he had
proposed his "Plan of Union" to bring the
13 American colonies together in "one generalgovernment", a plan that contained germs of
ideas later Incorporated in the U.S. Constitution.Between 1757 and 1775 he was unofficial ambas¬
sador of the colonies to Britain and joined Inthe struggle against the Stamp Act by which theBritish Parliament sought to tax citizens of the
American colonies, and lie stoutly defended
American interests until the Act was repealedin 1766.
Sage and humanist, Franklin displayed a life¬long concern for the happiness, well-being anddignity of mankind. "God grant", he wrote in
one of his last letters, "that not only the love ofliberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of;nan may pervade all the nations of the earth,
so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhereon its surface and say 'This is my country'."
Portrait of Thomas Paine, an engraving based on a paint-tkig by the 18th century English artist George Romney.
THOMAS PAINE
a reappraisal of 'Common Sense',
the most extraordinary pamphletof the American Revolution
by Bernard Bailyn
Text copyright © Reproduction prohibited
COMMON Sense is the most
brilliant pamphlet written dur¬ing the American Revolution, and oneof the most brilliant pamphlets everwritten in the English language. Howit could have been produced by abankrupt Quaker corsetmaker, a some¬time teacher, preacher, and grocer,and twice-dismissed excise officer
who happened to catch BenjaminFranklin's attention in England andwho arrived in America only 14months before Common Sense was
published is nothing one can explainwithout explaining genius itself.
BERNARD BAILYN, American historian
and educator, has since 1966 been Winthrop
Professor of History at Harvard University,where he began his teaching career almost 30
years ago. His published writings, covering a
broad range of themes in American Intellec¬
tual, social and economic history, include
The Ideological Origins of the American Revo¬
lution (1967), which won the Pulitzer andBancroft prizes, and Pamphlets of the Ameri¬can Revolution, the first volume of which was
awarded the Faculty Prize of the HarvardUniversity Press for 1965. Other major publi¬cations are The Origins of American Politics
(1968) and (as co-editor) The IntellectualMigration: Europe and America, 1930-1960
(1969) and Law in American History (1972).A fuller version of this article was presented
as a paper to the second symposium on theAmerican Revolution, organized by the U.S.Library ol Congress in Washington, in 1973.
For it is a work of genius slap¬dash as it is, rambling as it is, crudeas it is. It "burst from the press,"Benjamin Rush wrote, "with an effectwhich has rarely been produced bytypes and papers in any age or coun¬try." Its effect, Franklin said, was
"prodigious." It touched some extra¬ordinarily sensitive nerve in Americanpolitical awareness in the confusingperiod in which it appeared.
It was written by an Englishman,not an American. Thomas Paine had
only the barest acquaintance withAmerican affairs when he turned an
Invitation by Franklin to write a historyof the Anglo-American controversyinto the occasion for composing apassionate tract for American Inde¬pendence.
Yet, not only does Common Sensevoice some of the deepest aspirationsof the American people on the eve ofthe Revolution but it also evokes,with superb vigour and with perfectIntonation, longings and aspirationsthat have remained part of Americanculture to this day.
What is one to make of this extra¬
ordinary document after 200 years?What questions, in the context of thecurrent understanding of the causesand meaning of the Revolution, shouldone ask of it? ¡
Not, I think, the traditional one ofwhether Common Sense precipitatedthe movement for independence. Toaccomplish that was of course itsostensible purpose, and so powerfula blast, so piercing a cry so widelyheard throughout the colonies every¬one who could read must have seen
it in one form or another could
scarcely have failed to move somepeople some of the way. It undoub¬tedly caused some of the hesitant andvaguely conservative who had reach¬ed no decision to think once more
about the future that might be openingup in America.
For it appeared at what was per¬haps the perfect moment to have amaximum effect. It was published on10 January 1776. Nine months before,the first skirmishes of the Revolu¬
tionary War had been fought, andseven months before, a bloody battlehad taken place on Breed's Hill,across the bay from Boston, whichwas the headquarters of the Britisharmy in America, long since surround¬ed by provincial troops.
That a war of some sort was in
progress was obvious, but it was notobvious what the objective of thefighting was. There was disagree¬ment in the Continental Congress asto what a military victory, if it came,should be used to achieve.
A group of influential and articulateleaders, especially those from Mas¬sachusetts, were convinced that onlyIndependence from England couldproperly serve American needs, andBenjamin Franklin, recently returnedfrom London, had reached the sameconclusion and had found like-minded
people in Philadelphia.
But that was nor the common opi¬nion of the Congress, and it certainlywas not the general view of the popu¬lation at large.
20
Not a single colony had instructedits delegates to work for indepen¬dence, and not a single step hadbeen taken by the Congress that wasincompatible with the Idea whichwas still the prevailing view thatAmerica's purpose was to force theBritish Parliament to acknowledgethe liberties it claimed and to redress
the grievances that had for so longand In so many different ways beenexplained to the world.
All the most powerful unspokenassumptions of the time indeed,common sense ran counter to the
notion of independence.
If it is an exaggeration, it Is notmuch of an exaggeration to say thatone had to be a fool or a fanatic Inearly January 1776 to advocate Am¬erican independence.
Everyone knew that England wasthe most powerful nation on earth.Anyone whose common sense out¬
weighed his enthusiasm and imagin¬ation knew that a string of prosperousbut weak communities along theAtlantic coast left uncontrolled andunprotected by England would quick¬ly be pounced on by rival Europeanpowers whose ruling political notionsand whose institutions of governmentwere the opposite of what Americanshad been struggling to preserve.
The most obvious presumption ofall was that the liberties Americanssought were British in their nature:they had been achieved by Britainover the centuries and had been em¬bedded in a constitution whose won¬derfully contrived balance betweenthe needs of the state and the rightsof the individual was thought through¬out the Western world to be one, ofthe finest human achievements..-
It was obvious too, of course, thatsomething had gone wrong recently.It was generally agreed in the colo¬nies that the famous balance of theconstitution, in Britain and America,had been thrown off by a viciousgang of ministers greedy for power,and that their attention had been
drawn to the colonies by the mis¬representations of certain colonial
officeholders who hoped to find anopen route to influence and fortune
in the .enlargement of Crown powerin the colonies.
But the British constitution hadbeen under attack before, andalthough at certain junctures in thepast drastic action had been neces¬
sary to re-establish the balance, noone of any importance had ever con¬cluded that the constitution itself wasat fault.
No one had ever cast doubt on the
principle that liberty, as the colonistsknew it, rested on had in fact been
created bythe stable balancing ofthe three essential soclo-constltutlo-
nal orders, the monarchy, the nobility,and the people at large, each with Itsappropriate organ of government: theCrown, the House of Lords, and theHouse of Commons.
If the balance had momentarilybeen thrown off, let Americans, likeBritishers in former ages, fight torestore it: force the evildoers out, andrecover the protection of the onlysystem ever known to guarantee bothliberty and order.
America had flourished under that
benign system, and it was simplycommon sense to try to restore itsbalance. Why should one want todestroy the most successful politicalstructure in the world, which had beenconstructed by generations of consti¬tutional architects, each building onand refining the wisdom of his prede¬cessors, simply because its presentmanagers were vicious or criminal?
And was it reasonable to think thatthese ill-co-ordinated weak communi¬
ties along the Atlantic coast coulddefeat England in war and thenconstruct a system of governmentfree of the defects that had been re¬
vealed in the almost-perfect Englishsystem?
But Paine was certain that he knew
the answers to all these questions,and the immediate impact that Com¬mon Sense had was in large partsimply the result of the pamphlet'sringing assertiveness, its shrill un¬wavering declaration that all the rightwas on the side of independence andall the wrong on the side of loyaltyto Britain.
History favoured Paine, and so thepamphlet became prophetic. But inthe strict context of the historical-
moment of its appearance, its asser¬tiveness seemed to many to be moreoutrageous than prophetic.
All of this is part of the remarkablehistory of the pamphlet, part of theextraordinary impact it had upon con¬temporaries' awareness. Yet I do notthink that the question of its influenceon the developing movement towardindependence is the most useful ques¬tion that can be asked.
For we can now depict in 'detail the
BOSTON TEA PARTY, shown here, was a protest by American colonists againstBritish policies on the importing of tea into America. On 16 December 1773,colonists disguised as Indians boarded three British ships in the port of Boston,on the Atlantic seaboard of America, and threw their cargoes of tea into theharbour. The British retaliated with harsh laws, known as the "Intolerable Acts".
These further inflamed colonial public opinion against England and were one ofthe factors, like Thomas Paine's pamphlet "Common Sense", that helped tobring on the Revolutionary War in America. Some years earlier, in 1765, the Britishgovernment had tried through the Stamp Act to impose taxes on the colonists forthe upkeep of British troops in America, but American resistance forced the repealof the Act in 1766.
In the weeks when Common Sense
was being written the future even thevery immediate future was entirelyobscure. No one then could confi¬
dently say which course history wouldlater declare to have been the rightcourse to have followed.
No one then could know who would
later be seen to have been heroes
and who weaklings or villains. Noone then could know who would be
the winners and who the losers.
stages by which Congress was led tovote for independence, and the closerwe look at the details of what happen¬ed in Congress in early 1776 the lessimportant Common Sense appears tohave been. It played a role in thebackground, no doubt; and many peo¬ple, in Congress and out, had thememory of reading it as they acceptedthe final determination to move to
independence. But, as John Adamsnoted, at least as many people were,offended by the pamphlet as were per- 1
21
suaded by it, and we shall never knowthe proportions on either side with anyprecision.
What strikes one more forcefullynow, at this distance in time, issomething quite different from thequestion of the pamphlet's unmeasur-able contribution to the movement
toward Independence. There Is some¬thing extraordinary in this pamphletsomething bizarre, outsized, uniquequite aside from its strident appealfor independence, and that quality,which was recognized if not definedby contemporaries and which sets itoff from the rest of the pamphlet lit¬erature of the Revolution, helps usunderstand, I believe, somethingessential in the Revolution as a whole.
A more useful effort, It seems tome, than attempting to measure itsinfluence on independence is to seekto isolate this special quality.
Certainly the language is remark¬able. For its prose alone, CommonSense would be a notable document
unique among the pamphlets of theAmerican Revolution.
In the first substantive part of thepamphlet, ostensibly an essay on theprinciples of government in generaland of the English constitution in par¬ticular, the ideas are relativelyabstract but the Imagery is concrete:"Government, like dress, is the badgeof lost innocence; the palaces of kingsare built upon the ruins of thebowers of paradise."
, As for the "so much boasted cons¬titution of England," it was "noble forthe dark and slavish times in which it
was erected"; but that was not reallyso remarkable, Paine said, for "whenthe world was overrun with tyranny,the least remove therefrom was a
glorious rescue."
What of the true origins of the pre¬sent-day monarchs, so exalted bymyth and supposedly sanctified byantiquity? In all probability. Painewrote, the founder of any of the mod¬ern royal lines was "nothing betterthan the principal ruffian of somerestless gang, whose savage mannersor pre-eminence of subtillty obtainedhim the title of chief among the plun¬derers; and who, by increasing inpower and extending his depredations,overawed the quiet and defencelessto purchase their safety by frequentcontributions."
The English monarchs? "No manin his senses can say that their claimunder William the Conquerer is a veryhonourable one. A French bastard,landing with an armed banditti andestablishing himself king of Englandagainst the consent of the natives, isin plain terms a very paltry rascallyoriginal". The fact Is that everywherehereditary monarchy has "laid... theworld in blood and ashes".
It Is in the third section, "Thoughtson the Present State of American
Affairs," that Paine's language be¬comes most effective and vivid. The
emotional level is extremely highthroughout these pages and the lyricpassages even then must have seem¬ed prophetic:
The sun never shined on a cause of greaterworth... 'T'is not the concern of a day, ayear, or an age; posterity are virtually involv¬ed in the contest, and will be more or lessaffected even to the end of time by the pro¬ceedings now. Now is the seed-time of con¬tinental union, faith, and honour. The leastfracture now will be like a name engravedwith the point of a pin on the tender rind ofa young oak; the wound will enlarge with thetree, and posterity read it in full growncharacters.
The arguments in this section, prov¬ing the necessity for American inde¬pendence and the colonies' capacityto achieve it, are elaborately workedout, and they respond to all the objec¬tions to independence that Paine hadheard. But through all of these pagesof argumentation, the prophetic, lyricnote of the opening paragraphs conti¬nues to be heard, and a sense ofurgency -keeps the tension high.
"Everything that is right or reason¬able," Paine writes, "pleads for sep¬aration. The blood of the slain, theweeping voice of nature cries, 'tistime to part." Now is the time to act,he insists: "The present winter isworth an age if rightly employed, butif lost or neglected the whole conti¬nent will partake of the misfortune."
The possibility of a peaceful con¬clusion to the controversy had vanish¬ed, "wherefore, since nothing butblows will do, for God's sake let uscome to a final separation, and notleave the next generation to be cutt¬ing throats under the violated un¬meaning names of parent and child".And the section ends with Paine's
greatest peroration:
O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare tooppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant,stand forth I Every spot of the old world isoverrun with oppression. Freedom hath beenhunted round the globe. Asia and Africa havelong expelled her. Europe regards her like astranger, and England hath given her warningto depart. Ol receive the fugitive, and pre¬pare in time an asylum for mankind.
In the pamphlet literature of theAmerican Revolution there is nothingcomparable to this passage for sheeremotional intensity and lyric appeal.Its vividness must have leapt out ofthe pages to readers used to greyer,more stolid prose.
But language does not explain itself.It is a reflection of deeper elementsqualities of mind, styles of thought, awriter's personal culture. There issomething unique in the intellectualidiom of the pamphlet.
Common Sense, it must be said, islacking in close rigour of argumenta¬tion. Again and again Paine's logiccan be seen to be grossly deficient.The great intellectual force of Com¬mon Sense, however, lay not in itsclose argumentation on specific pointsbut in its reversal of the presumptions,that underlay the arguments, a rever-
COLOUR PAGES
Opposite page above :Typical rural scene in New England.A white clapboard house standshalf-hidden in the woods. New
England has six of the 13 Americanstates formed from the Englishcolonies founded on the Atlantic
coast of America in the 17th
century: Maine, New Hampshire,Vermont, Massachusetts, RhodeIsland and Connecticut.
Opposite page below :Autumn is the time of New
England's golden glory, especiallywhen the heat lingers on in anIndian summer. The greens of treesand ferns fade into a blaze of rich
russet tints, lemons and reds. Here,
a New England church framedbetween the branches of a tree and
a golden carpet of fallen leaves.
Centre double page :This extraordinary "impressionist"image of New York is a photo takenby the famous Americanphotographer Ernst Haas. No"realistic" image of New York couldbe more evocative than this
shimmering vision of the great city.
Photos Ernst Haas © Magnum, Paris
sal that forced thoughtful readers toconsider, not so much a point hereand a conclusion there, but a whollynew way of looking at the entire rangeof problems involved.
For beneath all of the explicit argu¬ments and conclusions against inde¬pendence, there were underlying, un¬spoken, even unconceptuallzed pre¬suppositions, attitudes, and habits ofthought that made it extremely difficultfor the colonists to break with Englandand find in the prospect of an inde¬pendent future the security and free¬dom they sought.
The special intellectual quality ofCommon Sense, which goes a longway toward explaining its impact oncontemporary readers, derives fromits reversal of these underlying pre¬sumptions and Its shifting of theestablished perspectives to the pointwhere the whole received paradigmwithin which the Anglo-American con¬troversy had until then proceededcame into question.
No one set of ideas was more
deeply embedded in the British andthe British-American mind than the
notion that liberty could survive in aworld of Innately ambitious and selfishmen only where a balance of thecontending forces was so institutio-
CONTINUED PAGE 27
22
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, nalized that no one contestant could
monopolize the power of the state andrule without effective opposition.
In its application to the Anglo-American world this general belieffurther presumed that the three mainsocio-constitutional contestants for
power the monarchy, the nobility,and the people had an equal right toshare in the struggle for power: thesewere the constituent elements of the
political world.
And most fundamental of all in this
basic set of constitutional notions was
the unspoken belief, upon whicheverything else rested, that complexityin government was good in itself sinceit made all the rest of the systempossible, and that, conversely, simpli¬city and uncomplicated efficiency inthe structure of government were evilin that they led to a monopolization ofpower, which could only result inbrutal state autocracy.
PAINE challenged this whole ba¬sic constitutional paradigm, and
although his conclusions were rejectedIn America the American state and
national governments are of coursebuilt on precisely the ideas he oppos¬ed the bland, automatic assumptionthat all of this made sense could no
longer, after the appearance of Com¬mon Sense, be said to exist, and res¬pect for certain points was permanent¬ly destroyed.
The entire set of received ideas on
government, Paine wrote, was false.Complexity was not a virtue in govern¬ment, he said. The opposite was infact true: "the more simple anythingis, the less liable it is to be disorderedand the easier repaired when dis¬ordered."
Simplicity was embedded in natureitself, and if the British constitution
Opposite page above :A wall is a wall is a wall is a wall.
It can serve in the game ofAmerican handball or as the
explosive medium for budding artistsor the vehicle for intergroupmessages.
Opposite page below :In 1965 in the southern states of the
U.S.A. there were 72 elected black
legislators on the national, state andmunicipal levels. Today there are athousand. Photo taken in the South
shows a black child playingabsorbedly alongside an elderlywhite man.
Photos Ernst Haas © Magnum, Paris
had reversed the natural order of
things, it had done so only to servethe unnatural purposes of the nobilityand the monarchy, neither of whichhad a right to share in the power ofthe state.
The nobility was nothing but thedead remains of an ancient "aristo¬
crática! tyranny" that had managed tosurvive under the cover of encrustingmythologies. The monarchical branchwas a more serious matter, and Painedevoted pages of the pamphlet to at¬tacking its claim to a share in theconstitution.
The "royal brute of Great Britain",as he called George III, was no less aridiculous constitutional figure thanhis continental equivalents. Forthough by his constitutional positionhe was required to know the affairsof his realm thoroughly and to par¬ticipate in them actively, by virtue ofhis exalted social position, 'entirelyremoved from everyday life ^"distin¬guished like some new species" hewas forever barred from doing justthat.
In fact the modern kings of Englanddid nothing at all, Paine wrote, butwage war and hand out gifts to theirfollowers, all the rest of the world'swork being handled by the commons.
Yet by virtue of the gifts the kinghad at his disposal, he corrupted theentire constitution, such as it was. Theking's only competitor for power wasthe House of Commons, and this bodyhe was able to buy off with the re¬wards of office and the intimidation of
authority. The whole idea of balancein the British constitution was there¬
fore a fraud for "the will of the king isas much the law of the land in Britain
as in France with this difference, thatinstead of proceeding directly fromhis mouth, it is handed to the peopleunder the formidable shape of an actof Parliament."
. No one at least no one writing inAmerica had made so straightfor¬ward and unqualified a case for thevirtues of republican government.
This was Paine's most importantchallenge to the received wisdom ofthe day, but it was only the first of aseries.
In passage after passage in Com¬mon Sense Paine laid bare one after
another of the presuppositions of theday which had disposed the colonists,consciously or unconsciously, to resistindependence, and by exposing theseinner biases and holding them up toscorn he forced people to think theunthinkable, to ponder the supposed¬ly self-evident, and thus to take thefirst step in bringing about a radicalchange.
So the question of independencehad always been thought of in filialterms: the colonies had once been
children, dependent for their lives onthe parent state, but now they had
matured, and the question was wheth¬er or not they were strong enoughto survive and prosper alone in aworld of warring states. This wholenotion was wrong, Paine declared.On this, as on so many other points,Americans had been misled by "an¬cient prejudices and... superstition".
England's supposedly protectivenurturance of the colonies had onlybeen a. form of selfish economic ag¬grandizement. The fact is, Painedeclared, that the colonies had never
needed England's protection; theyhad indeed suffered from it. Theywould have flourished far more if
England had Ignored them, for theirprosperity had always been based ona commerce In the necessities of life,and that commerce would have flour¬
ished, and would continue to flourish,so long as "eating is the custom ofEurope."
So on the major questions Paineperformed a task more basic thanarguing points in favour of indepen¬dence (though he did that too); heshifted the premises of the questionsand forced thoughtful readers to comeat them from different angles of visionand hence to open for scrutiny whathad previously been considered to bethe firm premises of the controversy.
Written in arresting prose and di¬rected as a polemic not so much atthe conclusions that opponents ofindependence had reached as at theirunspoken presumptions, and at theirsense of what was obvious and what
was not, Common Sense is a uniquepamphlet in the literature of the Revo¬lution. But none of this reaches its
most important inner quality.
There is something in the pamphletthat goes beyond both of these char¬acteristics, and while it is less sus¬ceptible to proof than the attributes Ihave already discussed, it is perhapsthe most important element of all. Itrelates to the social aspects of theRevolution.
MUCH ink has been spilledover the question of the de¬
gree to which the American Revolutionwas a social revolution, and it seemsto me that certain points have nowbeen well established.
The American Revolution was not
the result of intolerable social or eco¬
nomic conditions. The colonies were
prosperous communities whose eco¬nomic condition, recovering from thedislocations that followed the Seven
Years' War, Improved during the yearswhen the controversy with Englandrose In intensity. Nor was the Revo¬lution deliberately undertaken torecast the social order, to destroy thelast remnants of the ancien régime,such as they were in America.
And there were no "dysfunctions"building up that shaped a peculiarlyrevolutionary frame of mind in the^colonies. V
27
^ Yet in an indirect way there was asocial component in the Revolutionarymovement, but it Is subtle and latent,wound in, at times quite obscurely,among other elements, and difficult tograsp in Itself. It finds its most force¬ful expression in the dilated prose ofPaine's Common Sense.
The dominant tone of Common
Sense is that of rage. It was writtenby an enraged man not someonewho had reasoned doubts about the
English Constitution and the relatedestablishment in America, but some¬one who hated them both and whowished to strike back at them in a
savage response.
The verbal surface of the pamphletIs heated, and it burned into the con¬sciousness of contemporaries becausebelow it was the flaming conviction,not simply that England was corruptand that America should declare its
independence, but that the whole oforganized society and governmentwas stupid and cruel and that it sur¬vived only because the atrocities itsystematically imposed on humanityhad been papered over with a veneerof mythology and superstition thatnumbed the mind and kept peoplefrom rising against the evils that op¬pressed them.
The aim of almost every other nota¬ble pamphlet of the Revolution was toprobe difficult, urgent, and contro¬versial questions and make appro¬priate recommendations. The aim ofCommon Sense was to tear the world
apart the world as it was known andas it was constituted. Common Sense
has nothing of the close logic, schol¬arship, and rational tone of the bestof the American pamphlets. It wasnot meant to probe unknown realitiesof a future way of life, or to convince,or to explain; it was meant to over¬whelm and destroy.
In this respect Common Sense bearscomparison not with the writings ofthe other American pamphleteers butwith those of Jonathan Swift. For
Swift too had been a verbal killer in
an age when pamphleteering was im¬portant to politics. But Swift's chiefweapon had been a rapier as sharp asa razor and so pointed that it firstentered its victim unfelt. Paine's
writing has none of Swift's marvelous-ly ironic subtlety, just as it has noneof the American pamphleteers' learn¬ing and logic. Paine's language isviolent, slashing, angry, indignant.
This inner voice of anger and indig¬nation had been heard before in
Georgian England, in quite specialand peculiar forms. It is found incertain of the writings of the extremeleft-wing libertarians; and it can befound too in the boiling denunciationsof English corruption that flowed fromthe pens of such would-be prophetsas Dr. John Brown, whose sulphuricEstimate of the Manners and Princi¬
ples of the Times created such a sen¬sation in 1757.
But its most vivid expression is notverbal but graphic: the paintings andengravings of William Hogarth, whoseawareness of the world had taken
shape In the same squalor of London'sand the provinces' demimonde inwhich Paine had lived and in which
he had struggled so unsuccessfully.In Paine's pamphlet all of thesestrains and sets of attitudes combine.
In subdued form something of thesame indignation and anger lurksaround the edges and under the sur¬face of the American Revolutionarymovement. It is not the essential core
of the Revolution, but it is an impor¬tant part of it, and one of the mostdifficult aspects to depict. Onecatches a sense of it in John Adams'
intense hatred of the political estab¬lishment in Boston. It can be found
too in the denunciations of Englishcorruption that sprang so easily to thelips of the New England preachers;and it can be found in the resentment
of otherwise secure Americans faced
with the -brutal arrogance and irra¬tional authority of Crown officialsappointed through a patronage systemutterly remote from America and Inno way reflective of the realities ofAmerican society.
Common Sense expresses all of thisin a magnified form. The pamphletsparked into flame resentments thathad smouldered within the American
opposition to England for years, andbrought into a single focus the lackof confidence in the whole Europeanworld that Americans had vaguely feltand the aspirations for a newer, freer,more open world independent ofEngland, which had not, until then,been freely expressed.
Common Sense did not touch offthe movement for a formal declara¬
tion of independence, and it did notcreate the Revolutionary leaders' de¬termination to build a better world,
more open to human aspirations, thanhad ever been known before. But it
stimulated both; and it exposes Inunnaturally vivid dilation the angerborn of resentment, frustration, hurt,and fear that is an impelling forcein every transforming revolution.
Bernard Bailyn
CITIZEN
PAINE
by Jacques Janssens
JACQUES JANSSENS of Belgium isa historian specializing in the 18th and19th centuries. Notable among hispublished works are : Petite Histoire desEtats- Un ¡s (VI Short Historyof the UnitedStates) published by Editions Mame,Paris 1956 and Camille Desmoulins, le
Premier Républicain de France (CamilleDesmoulins, France's First Republican)published by Editions Libraire Acadé¬mique Perrin, Paris 1973.
28
THE first year of the War of In¬dependence was already draw¬
ing to its close, but confusion wasstill rife within the American ranks.
Despite the efforts being made bypatriot leaders to finalize the breakwith Britain, the majority in the Conti¬nental Congress was still reluctant tosever all ties with the mother countryby proclaiming the independence ofthe united colonies.
At this point, in January 1776, aforty-seven page pamphlet was pub¬lished in Philadelphia and explodedon the public like a bomb (see articlepage 20).
The repercussions of CommonSense were tremendous: a hundred
thousand copies were sold with aston¬ishing speed, encouraging the call toinsurrection throughout the colonies.
Common Sense was initially attribut¬ed to Benjamin Franklin, but when thereal author eventually made himselfknown, his readers were amazed tolearn that this champion of Americanliberation and enemy of the Britisholigarchy was none other than anEnglishman who had arrived in theNew World little more than a yearearlier. His name was Thomas Paine.
Thomas Paine was born on 29 June
1737, in Thetford, a small town inNorfolk, England, of an Anglicanmother and Quaker father. It is veryprobable that his later hatred ofviolence, oppression and intolerancein all its forms sprang from his up¬bringing in the Quaker tradition.
His parents were not rich, and atthe age of thirteen he had to learnthe family trade of corset-making.However, at the age of twenty-fourhe became an excise officer engagedin the suppression of smuggling.
Paine's energy made him stand outamongst his colleagues, and when .they decided to draw the government'sattention to their wretched workingconditions, he was chosen to draft a
memorandum setting out their grie¬vances and stating their claims.
He travelled to London, where helobbied members of parliament andother influential people in the hopeof gaining their support. Allegedly be¬cause he had taken leave without
permission, but probably because thegovernment was glad of an excuse torid itself of a nuisance, Paine wasdismissed from his post.
The dismissal of Thomas Paine
appears at first sight to be a matterof minor significance. It may none¬theless have been a deciding factor inBritain's loss of her North American
colonies.
Paine had made friends in scientific
circles, and through them he was in¬troduced to Benjamin Franklin, whowas then living in London. Franklinrecognized Paine's talents, took a lik¬ing to him, and saw that a man of hiscalibre might be of use in America.The former excise officer, for his part,was particularly excited at the pros¬pect of emigrating because he had
a. - / Indépendance/ on/ le'Triomphe de/la/ltverte/
The events of the struggle for American independence had a far-reaching impactbeyond the shores of America, even in such unexpected ways as influencing Parisfashions of the day. This engraving, entitled "Coiffure à l'Indépendance oule Triomphe de la Liberté" (Independence-style Hairdo or the Triumph of Liberty)shows a typically highly elaborate 18th century hairstyle, here designed toillustrate a current event. The "ship-shaped" headgear worn by the elegantParisienne commemorates a sea battle on 17 June 1778 involving the French' frigate"La Belle Poule" which was sailing westwards to help the Americans in theirstruggle for independence.
for years dreamed of visiting theNew World.
Paine left England in October 1774,and on his arrival in Philadelphia didsome teaching for a while in order tosubsist. Then a printing and book¬selling firm which had recently startedup a magazine gave him the job ofeditor, and as a result of his efforts
the subscription list of the Pennsyl¬vania Magazine rose within a shorttime from six hundred to fifteen hun¬
dred, with Paine's articles playing aconsiderable part in this increase.
He was the first person in Americato call for the emancipation of Negroslaves, plead for women's rights, and
deplore the ¡ll-treatment of animals.At the same time he discussed the
growing tension between Britain andthe thirteen colonies, and was overtin his sympathies for the Americancause, though at the same time heentertained hopes of reconciliation.
When gunfire echoed at the Battleof Lexington in April 1775, Paine im¬mediately set about rallying supportfrom patriots who, crying out for"liberty or death", raised the standardof the Revolution. Paine proclaimedhimself a citizen of the world. "Mycountry is the world. My religion isto do good."
Himself a republican by virtue ofr
29
, reaction against the despotism ofmonarchy, Paine endeavoured toextinguish the last vestiges of royalistsentiment remaining In the hearts ofhis adopted compatriots; and indeedsucceeded in doing so. When theUnited States faced the problem ofwhich form of government it was toadopt, republican ideas did not takelong to prevail.
It was with this very goal in viewthat Paine wrote Common Sense. Init he set forth ideas for a constitution
and outlined a clear, practical andpowerful plan for government whichwas later to serve as an inspirationfor legislators in Pennsylvania andVirginia.
Only one of his ideas failed to beadopted, namely the emancipation ofNegroes and their inclusion in the"social compact", for which he putforward moral, religious and economicarguments.
The publication of this pamphletresulted in great acclaim for Paine.People took to calling him "Com¬mon Sense", and many of them neverknew him other than by this nickname.
Overjoyed by the Declaration ofIndependence, but feeling that he hadnot done enough for the cause of theRevolution the military situation was
then critical Paine suspended pub¬lication of his magazine and enlistedin the army. His rifle on his shoulder,he took part in the retreat whichfollowed the fall of Fort Lee.
When Philadelphia also fell, andWashington's only possible course ofaction was to retreat to Valley Forgewith five thousand exhausted men who
were without supplies, Paine followedhim and shared in the army's priva¬tions and suffering.
Thomas Paine wrote the first of his
Crises after the fall of Fort Lee, bythe flickering light of the camp fire,to give courage to the retreatingtroops. His key words were hope,steadfastness and confidence; and
the enthusiasm engendered in the sol¬diers by his stirring prose finally de¬cided General Washington to standfirm and attack the enemy at Trenton.
When Congress set up a Committeefor Foreign Affairs in April 1777, Painewas appointed its secretary. Thisappointment did not, however, passentirely without opposition, for hisanti-slavery views had apparently pro¬voked concealed resentment towards
him on the part of some southernrepresentatives. He had been givenhis appointment because of his ta¬lents as a writer, and he carried out
his duties conscientiously and withefficiency for nearly two years.
In 1781 Congress, badly in need offunds, asked Paine to draw up a re¬quest for financial aid to the Frenchgovernment. Paine had been about tofound a paper of his own, but gaveup his plans in order to accompanyCol. Laurens- to Paris where he stayedwith Benjamin Franklin. The mission'ssuccessful outcome was mainly dueto his efforts, though most of thepraise for this feat went to Laurensrather than Paine.
The aid granted by France enabledGeneral Washington to continue thecampaign which finally led to LordCornwallis' surrender at Yorktown,and marked the end of the War of
Independence between America andBritain.
Paine's attitude to the above mis¬
sion, as to many other matters, revealsa total lack of self-interest. He had
waived the copyright of all his pam¬phlets, even Common Sense, whosetotal sales had amounted to nearly amillion copies. The only people toprofit from his writings were hisprinters.
He became so poor that he wasmore than once forced to draw the
CONTINUED PAGE 46
WASHINGTON BIDS FAREWELL TO LAFAYETTEGeorge Washington has a lasting place in American historyas the "Father of his country". He commanded the armythat won independence ; was president of the Conventionthat wrote the U.S. Constitution ; and became the firstPresident of the United States. Portrait, below, shows
Washington as a young man. Below right, Washingtonon the terrace of his home at Mt. Vernon, Virginia,bids farewell in 1784 to his lifelong friend, the Frenchsoldier-statesman Lafayette, who joined Washington'sstaff and fought gallantly for American independence as avolunteer. Right, the famous Liberty Bell being tolled inPhiladelphia to mark the adoption of the Declaration ofIndependence in 1776.
Photo USIS, Pari?
30
LIBERTY'
IN
THE
MAKING
*
HThe statue of "Liberty Enlightening the World" was a gift from the people of France to thepeople of the United States for the 100th anniversary of American independence. This engravingshows the statue being assembled on Bedloe's Island, now called Liberty Island, in New Yorkharbour, during the summer of 1886. On the tablet "Liberty" holds in her left hand is engravedthe date of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence: 4 July 1776.
CONTINUED NEXT PAGE
Photo USIS, Paris
31
VITAL STATISTICS
OF AMERICA'S LIBERTY BELLE
The Statue of Liberty is one of the Ilargest statues ever made (46 metresfrom the sandals to the top of thetorch). The torch itself towers 93 m.above the base of the statue's gran¬ite and concrete pedestal. Its head,from base of neck to the spiked .crown, measures 8.5 m., and is 1 5 m,in circumference. Made of sheets of
copper over a framework of iron, thestatue weighs over 200 tons.
Liberty's torch shines through 600panes of leaded glass (see back cover Icaption on page 3). It is illuminatedby 19 lamps with a total of 13,000watts. An observation platform inthe crown has 25 windows and can
accommodate 30 viewers.
Two parallel stairways spiral upfrom the base to the crown. Each!
.stairway has 168 steps. Visitorsclimb up one staircase and descendíby the other.
An "Eiffel Tower" clothed by Bar¬tholdi. The "skeleton" for the statue
designed and constructed by theFrench sculptor Bartholdi is thework of the French engineer Gustave!Eiffel, who later built Paris' famous
Eiffel Tower (1889). Liberty's frame-,work is made of iron supported bysteel columns. Collaboration bet¬
ween sculptor and engineer pro¬duced a work that can withstand the full force of an Atlantic gale.
Base of the statue is reached by an elevator which brings visitorsfrom the ground floor up through the pedestal, a distance of about50 m. The pedestal was built with donations from the people of theUnited States.
Photo © World Book
encyclopaedia. U.S.A.
Photo USIS, Paris
'LIBERTY' IN THE MAKING (Continued)
"Liberty Enlightening the World" was no less than 20 yearsin the making. In 1865, Edouard de Laboulaye, a French histo¬rian, proposed the idea of a monument to mark the 100thanniversary of American independence which France and theUnited States would erect in commemoration of their
alliance during the Revolutionary War. The proposal inspireda young and already famous French sculptor, Frédéric Bar¬tholdi (1834-1904) with the idea of creating a colossalmetallic sculptured figure, that could be transported insections to the U.S.A. While the Franco-American Union was
raising funds for this gift from France, Bartholdi sculpted hisstatue section by section. Engravings of the time (photos 1and 2) show work in progress on the giant (5 m. long) hand
I II II II II II
4" .'. .'. .. AII IIIIIIIII il Illllilli H|
Photos © Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
and the head. Parisians watched in amazement as the giantesstowered ever higher over Bartholdi's atelier (3). By April 1876the modelling was complete but Bartholdi continued to workon the statue (his "daughter" as he called it) until 1884.Dismantled piece by piece, it was transported to the UnitedStates in a French ship, packed in 210 enormous crates.Reconstructed in New York, the Statue of Liberty was inau¬gurated on 28 October 1886. The previous year, Americanresidents in Paris had presented a 9 m. high replica to Franceas a token of their appreciation for the original gift. Thissmaller version still stands nearthe Mirabeau Bridge in Paris,not far from the Eiffel Tower (4) while the original, on itsisland in New York harbour, greets the world's ships as theyenter the port (5).
Photo Don Hunstein © Snark International, Paris
nimm n mmm 11 iimiiii si iiimiii ii iiiiiini i
Photo Michel Claude - Unesi
by Yen Lu Wongand
Herbert Chivambo Shore
A LIVING HERITAGE
OF MANY CULTURES
AND MANY PEOPLES
IN the Ballad for Americans, thegreat voice of Paul Robeson sings
an anthem to a nation of immigrants.
Am / an American?
I'm just an Irish, Negro, Jewish, Italian,French and English, Spanish, Russian,Chinese, Polish, Scotch, Hungarian,Litvak, Swedish, Finnish, Canadian,Greek and Turk and Czech
and double-check American...
Today, two hundred years after itsbirth, and after more than a centuryof the myth of assimilation, the UnitedStates is still a land of many peoples,a vast interaction of diverse and dy¬namic cultures.
In the pueblos of the Southwest,they dance the Mattachines and theDeer Dance, and tell tales of a timewhen the Montezuma lived in nearbyPicuris. Cross over Grant Avenue,in San Francisco or Mott Street in
New York and the signs are likely tobe in Chinese.
Take a test for a driving licence inSouthern California and you will beroutinely handed a set of instructionsin three languages. Telephone oper¬ators can speak Spanish or Chineseas well as English, depending uponwhere you are in the country whenyou pick up the phone.
The sights and sounds of the Afri¬can heritage are alive in the churchesor on the streets of Harlem or the
YEN LU WONG of the United States, is an
authority on Chinese and Chinese-AmericanTheatre and Dance and problems of culturalidentity. A dancer, choreographer and spe¬cialist in the art of movement, she is a
member of the faculty of the University ofCalifornia, San Diego,
i
HERBERT CHIVAMBO SHORE, U.S.
author, playwright, theatre director andconsultant on cultural affairs and the per¬forming arts, is artistic consultant to theSmithsonian Institution's "Festival ofAmeri¬
can Folklife". He is consulting Director ofUnesco's Project on Cultural Innovation andwas formerly Founding Professor, Departmentof Theatre Arts of the University of Dar esSalaam, Tanzania. He is a specialist in Africantheatre andliterature, and Third Worldculturesin the United States.
Sea Islands of the Georgia coast.New Orleans is a Creole city, a blendof French, African and Spanishcultures.
There is an Irish Boston, a PolishChicago, a German Cincinnati, a SlavicPittsburgh, a Portuguese Gloucester,and a Scandinavian Minneapolis.There are Chinatowns, Little Tokyos,and Little Italies in many cities, andcentres of Native American life like
Taos, Four Corners and WoundedKnee.
The names across the land, namesof rivers and lakes, towns and cities,streets, bear witness to the pluralismof American culture. Mississippi, Mis¬souri, Rappahanock and Monangahelasing of the Native American heritage.California, Santa Fe, Chimayo, SanFrancisco, tell of a Spanish, Mexicanand Chicano past and present. Thereare eleven cities named Athens, eightMoscows, eight Frankfurts, ten Gen¬evas, and seven Waterloos, as well asa Holland in Michigan, Nebraska andMinnesota, London and Odessa inTexas, and Stockholm in SouthDakota.
In the 19th century, an observerwrote, "On a board in front of a stage¬coach office in Buffalo (in the stateof New York), I once read, 'stagesstart from this house for China,Sardinia, Holland, Hamburg, Java,Sweden, Cuba, Havre, Italy, and Penn-Yan.'" All are the names of placesin the United States.
American cuisine too is ethnic in
its diversity. It has adopted andadapted a wide range of Internationalfoods into a rich culinary variety.Markets across the land sell soul food,knishes and gefilte fish, bean curd,won ton, ramen, Irish stew, scrapple,sauerkraut, pilau and couscous, andmany more foods, frozen, fresh ortinned, from the cultures of Europe,Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
There are dishes with foreignnames that are American in origin,such as chop suey and chili con carne,and there are "old world" specialitiessuch as pizza which, in the American
milieu, have been developed into acomplex and appetizing art. A tour ofthe restaurants in various regions ofthe country would literally be a culi¬nary trip around the world.
The growth of specific crafts, skillsand even entire industries are often
associated with particular cultures.Black peoples, slave and free, lefttheir imprint on agriculture, textiledesign, iron and wood, musical ins¬truments and a variety of arts. "Thecontribution of Native Americans to
the techniques of crop developmentand the use of fertilizer is well known.
The Chinese built the railroads and
the mines of the American West with
intense labour and ingenuity, andwere industrious and innovative
workers in restaurants and pharmaciesas well. The Irish were strongly iden¬tified with the networks of railroads
and canals of the East; the Jews with
the garment industry and needletrades; Slavic and other CentralEuropean peoples with iron and steel.
Italians founded the wine industryof California and dug the subways ofNew York. The lore of labour is filled
with tales and songs of Welsh miners,Portuguese fishermen, Polish meat-packers, Chicano and Navajo farm¬workers, and, as the Ballad for Am¬ericans says, "lots more too."
The "Festival of American Folklife."
presented each summer in Washing¬ton, D.C, is a celebration of a nationof immigrants who brought with themcrafts and skills, music and dance,theatre, stories, ballads, languages,culinary customs, and ways of life.But there is something more to thecultural pluralism of the United Statesthan the fact that a great manycultures interact in the mainstream of
American life.
The cultures have mingled and yetremained distinct. Some have formed
large centres in urban settlements;some are scattered in diasporathroughout the country. Some havebeen forced into ghettos by prejudiceand economic control. Some live in
small and relatively isolated enclaves
34
Two hundred years after its birth, the United States is still a land of many peoples, a vastinteraction of diverse and dynamic cultures. There is an Irish Boston, a Polish Chicago, a SlavicPittsburgh, a Portuguese Gloucester and a Scandinavian Minneapolis. There are Chinatowns,Little Tokyos and Little Italies in many cities, and centres of American Indian life in many States.But there is also an increasing mingling of races and cultures. Here, a mixed family black andwhite from the southern State of North Carolina.
of dignity, pride and special ways oflife. The struggle for cultural Identityhas been a long, difficult and im¬portant part of the nation's history.
When independence was proclaim¬ed in 1776, this was already a land ofmany peoples. It had been explored,visited and occasionally settled bySpanish, French, Italians, Africans,Portuguese, Greeks, Scandinavians,Germans and Jews.
The very first immigrants thosewho today truly have the right tocall themselves Native Americans
came across from Siberia about
22000 B.C. when the Bering Straitwas dry land. They numbered aboutone million when Columbus arrived
and mis-named them "Indians". Theylived in different types of economicand social organization, were alliedin complex confederations, spoke anumber of different languages andhad a variety of cultures.
In Common Sense, Tom Paine re¬cognized that people from many na¬tions helped to create and build thethirteen colonies. He wrote, "Europeand not England, is the parent coun¬try of America." But even he missedthe fact that on the eve of the Revo¬
lution itself, about one-fourth of Am¬erica's people were neither British
nor European and they played an im¬portant role in the War for Indepen¬dence. About one million were Native
American, and some 400,000 wereBlack people from Angola and otherparts of West and East Africa.
That was only the beginning. Themovement of peoples and cultures tothe United States in the period from1850 to 1920 is probably the largestcontinuous human migration in his¬tory. The growing country faced achallenge to create a unified nationand a coherent culture from its poly¬glot population. Many of the newly-independent nations of the world arefacing a similar challenge today.
Those in power and control fearedthe pluralism of America's people andtheir response to this challenge gavebirth to the myth of the melting pot.It was pressed upon the countrythrough great efforts in almost everyaspect of society, enforced by pro¬paganda, coercion and prejudice.Schools, agencies, employers, indus¬try and the media all joined to supportand teach assimilation. Former lan¬
guages, customs and values were tobe cast aside and exchanged for anew "American culture."
In the 1920s, a theatre spectaclepresented to Its employees by the
Ford Motor Company summed it up invisual terms. Actors dressed as Ita¬
lians, Poles, and other immigrantgroups sang their "foreign" songsand danced their "foreign" dancesas they entered a huge pot. Theythen emerged dressed in "Americanclothes" and singing The Star-Span¬gled Banner. The message was clear.
Actually the new "pure Americanculture" being taught was really acomposite of the values, customs,habits and manners of the Anglo-Saxon immigrant groups. The ideathat Anglo-Saxon culture was some¬how superior took shape in the early19th century and was gradually ex¬panded to include Teutons and Nor¬dics, the blond Northern Europeans.
The contributions of other ethnic
groups were either ignored, minimiz¬ed or Anglicized. The explorer, Gio¬vanni Caboto became John Cabot,and the jazz music of Black Ameri¬cans was dubbed "Dixieland" to
emphasize the regional base of itsorigins and play down the Africancultural roots of those who created it.
Hierarchies of cultures were estab¬
lished and peoples were actuallyclassified as assimilable and unassi-
milable. Racism was thus fostered ^
and strengthened and the develop- r
35
ment of ethnie stereotypes was inten¬sified.
Cultural assimilation, especially inthe schools, had devastating effectson family life and produced seriousconflict between generations. Chil¬dren were taught to be ashamed ofthe language, customs and mannersof their parents, and they shunnedtheir heritage. This came to be knownas the "second generation phenom¬enon." President Theodore Roosevelt,himself, in 1915, proclaimed, "Thereis no room in this country for hyphe¬nated Americanism."
BUT the great feminine socialreformer, Jane Addams, when
she founded Hull House, the commu¬nity centre in Chicago, included thefirst ethnic or immigrant museum inthe country to help children achievean understanding of and pride in theircultural heritage.
She argued that ignorant teachersin the schools were damaging Am¬erican life by rejecting the culturesof immigrants, rather than using thisdiversity to give the children a broad¬ening perspective of the world.
Francis Lieber, the German immi¬grant intellectual, in his book, TheStranger in America, advocated themaintenance of cultural identity andthe retention of foreign languages inthe schools. At the same time, heopposed isolationist or separatistschemes of settlement, arguing thatthey split the country into culturalatoms and that settlers who clungtogether suffered from "mental stag¬nation."
Immigrant banks were formed, mu¬tual aid societies, national associa¬tions, co-operative stores, foreign lan¬guage churches and synagogues,foreign language newspapers andradio stations. These helped to fostera sense of cultural identity.
Other institutions developed, someformal, some informal, such as theChinese tong, the Italian padrone sys¬tem, the Hebrew Sheltering and Immi¬grant Aid Society, to help new immi¬grants make the voyage, find a placeto live, locate a job and supply moralsupport.
Often torn between two worlds,members of cultural and ethnic groupsfaced an inner turmoil which only nowmany are beginning to perceive andunderstand. Stoyan Cristowe in Half anAmerican, written in 1919, expressedthe classic predicament of the ethnicAmerican. "While I am not a whole
American, neither am I what I waswhen I first landed here; that is, a
Bulgarian. Still retaining some inherit¬ed native traits, enough to bar me...from complete assimilation, I haveoutwardly and inwardly deviated somuch from a Bulgarian that when re¬cently visiting that country I felt likea foreigner and was so regarded."
More recently, one of the authorsof this article, Yen Lu Wong, visitedthe People's Republic of China. Inthe United States she is recognizedas Chinese, but in China, no matterwhat her racial and cultural origins,and no matter the genuine friendshipand affinities that were expressed toher, she was clearly recognized as anAmerican.
Black Americans, visiting Africa,have had the same experience, disco¬vering their roots in Africa, but theirdifferences as well, and the measureof these differences is what defines
their being American.
The ethnic cultures of America are
related to but distinct from those in
the countries of their origin. Twosections of the Smithsonian Institu¬
tion's "Festival of American' Folklife,""Old Ways in the New World" and"African Diaspora" demonstrate thisclearly, for they bring groups fromcorrelative cultures in the United
States and abroad to perform side byside.
The enriching tie to the foreign landis there, but what makes them dif¬ferent is the sharing of the Americanexperience. This common sharingamong diverse groups, rather than anenforced assimilation, forms the basisfor a sense of creative unity, or cross-cultural interaction. It is a unity indiversity, a new and exciting meaningto the American motto, E pluribusunum.
Militant assertions of ethnic and
cultural identity emerged in the 1960s,and the nation discovered that it is no
melting pot and never has been. Ledby Blacks, Chícanos and Native Am¬ericans, this new quest for Identityspread rapidly to others, to groups ofAsian and European origin as well.
To be an American and to expressone's individuality did not requireshedding the characteristics of one'scultural heritage. On the contrary, itmeant being truly an expression ofone's own culture within the frame of
time, place and circumstance.
Each person becomes a living mi¬crocosm of the interaction of culture,class, nation and time. To achieve theuniversal means to probe the parti¬cular to its very depths and expressIt fully.
Young people in the United Statesare beginning to discover that theycan enrich their lives by building onvaluable cultural characteristics in
their own and other ethnic groups.
Cultural identity and pluralism arenot restrictive but are points of crea¬tive departure, if they reject assimila¬tion on the one hand, and the narrowchauvinism of ethnocentricity on theother.
S. Dillon Ripley, Head of the Smith¬sonian Institution, has pointed out,"There is in mankind today a fear ofthe loss of identity. We fear the unionof megastates and megacorporationswhich for efficiency's sake would
mold us all our thoughts as well asour actions to a new life where
differences between groups would besmoothed out".
History, however, seems to demons¬trate that people, individually and col¬lectively, resist that "smoothing out."Enforced assimilation, with all of itsinherent contradictions of power andclass, in the long run produces mili¬tant reactions of ethnic and cultural
identity. A more creative solutionsuggests itself in a cross-cultural plu¬ralism, based on the dynamic andconstructive interaction among clear¬ly identifiable cultural groups.
Cultural identity is a world-wideforce. Its concerns are intensified
by rapid technological development,urbanization, and the growth of masscommunication. These concerns are
recurrent themes in a number of
Unesco projects and programmesdealing with cross-cultural studies,cultural innovation, and cultural dev¬elopment. Millions are coming to seethat the heritage of their cultures,adapted to the modern world, are aresource of human values out of
which to forge richer human relationsIn a technological age.
CULTURAL pluralism has cometo have new potential in the
United States. The consciousness of
one's own cultural identity can helpone to learn how to discern and in¬
terpret clues from others who differfrom them. It can produce a cohe-siveness of interaction that is far more
unifying in spirit and reality than anycoercively imposed unity. It can meanwider horizons, new competencies inconsciousness, new skills in self-knowledge and the accurate percep¬tion of those with different roots and
origins.
Myths of assimilation and hierar¬chies of cultural superiority actuallyblunt and dull a nation's sensitivityto the cultural and intellectual cur¬rents of the world. A revolution in
cultural awareness could have impor¬tant consequences in both domesticsocial policy and in internationalaffairs.
At this, the beginning of its thirdcentury, the United States could crossa new frontier. It could come to a
more accurate knowledge of itselfand create a social whole in which
pluralism is the well-spring of thefuture, the presupposition and thepride.
Yen Lu Wongand Herbert Chivambo Shore
36
Indians rediscover
their identityAbout 800,000 Indians live in the
United States. They are free to live ona reservation or not as they please,and more than half have chosen to do
so. Indians are rediscovering their pastand their old ways and at the sametime mastering the new. Photos show:top, Navajo Indian community collegeas it nears completion on the 25,000 sq.mile Navajo reservation extending overparts of Arizona, New Mexico andUtah. Centre, Navajo children in theirlocal community school. Older Navajowomen also sit in at the lesson. Bottom,
at the annual Festival of American
Folklife, organized by the SmithsonianInstitution in Washington, D.C, Iro¬quois Indians of eastern U.S.A. demons¬trate an ancient Indian game. Lacrosse,now widely popular in Canada and theUnited States.
THE IMPORTANCE
OF PRIVATE PHILANTHROPY
IN THE AMERICAN ARTS
Photo © Gamma, Paris
In 1966 a rich American businessman, Joseph H. Hirshhorn,who had arrived in the United States as an immigrant childfrom Latvia in 1905, presented to the American people a col¬lection of important modern paintings and sculptures whichhe had assembled over 40 years. The response to this gift wasthe creation by the U.S. Congress of the Hirshhorn Museumand Sculpture Garden in Washington D.C. This added amajor new centre to America's 2,500 museums and artgalleries that are visited by over 100 million persons annually.The Museum, opened on 4 October 1974, forms part of theSmithsonian Institution, a vast complex of museums andresearch institutes specializing in the arts, the sciences andhistory.The Hirshhorn Museum has a permanent collection of 4,000paintings and 2,000 sculptures reflecting the major trends inAmerican and European art from the mid-1 9th century to thepresent day. Photos on this page show (1) the Museumbuilding, a remarkable example of modern monumental sculp¬ture. It is a 25-metre-high construction in the shape of ahollow cylinder resting on 4 massive pillars. The building hasaroused controversy in some quarters. (2) The Museum
from ground level ; some of the modern sculpture pieces canbe seen exhibited in and near the vast courtyard, 35 metres indiameter. (3) Inside the museum, visitors are attending acurrent major exhibition entitled "The Golden Door: Artist-
Immigrants of America, 1876-1976". Presenting works by 67painters, sculptors, architects and photographers, the exhi¬bition reveals the great contribution of immigrant artists toAmerican art. On opposite page are some of the worksexhibited in "The Golden Door" exhibition.
A major role in America is played by private foundationswhich aid the arts and humanities and research in manyfields. America has 26,000 foundations, of which over 2,500have assets of $ 1 million each or make total contributionsof $ 500,000 or more annually. Three of the biggest founda¬tions, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundationand the Duke Endowment, spend over $ 250 million annually,with two-thirds going to education and cultural programmes.One outstanding contribution in the arts was the $ 20 milliongiven by the A.W. Mellon Educational and CharitableTrust to build and maintain the National Gallery of Art inWashington D.C.
38
Photo © Gamma, Paris Photo © Gamma, Paris
FREDERICK KIESLER. 77>e Gong(1963-64)Born Czernowitz, Austria-Hungary1890. Emigrated to U.S.A. 1930.
MARK ROTHKO. Blue, Orange, Red(1961)Born Dvinsk, Russia, 1903. Emigrated toU.S.A. 1913.
GASTON LACHAISE. Standing Woman(Heroic Woman) (1932)Born Paris, 1882. Emigratedto U.S.A. 1906.
NAUM GABO. Linear Construction No. 4
(1959-61)Born Briansk, Russia, 1890. Emigratedto U.S.A. 1946. WALTER GROPIUS. Competition Pro-
jectforChicagoTribune Building (1922)Born Berlin, 1883.
Emigrated to U.S.A. 1937.
< PIET MONDRIAN. Study for Broad¬way Boogie-Woogie (1942)Born Utrecht, Netherlands, 1872. Emi¬
grated to U.S.A. 1940.
?hoto © Arnold Newman, Hirshhorn Museum and SculptureSaraen, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C.
39
THE STATE AS A PATRON
OF THE ARTS
created a decade ago by the U.S. Congressthe National Endowment for the Arts
today operates with an annual budget of $82 millionand occupies a significant place in the cultural life of America
by Nancy Hanks
LIFE is what goes on whilewe're making other plans."
So goes an adage that's as true fornations as it is for individuals.
When thirteen colonies declared
their independence from the distantBritish crown 200 years ago, the found¬ing fathers laid great plans indeed toguarantee "life, liberty and the pursuitof happiness." They achieved somegoals almost immediately, like theestablishment of a representativegovernment. But they deferred otherideal aims, such as the nurturing ofthe arts, which was put off for 190years.
Many of the founding fathers hadthe highest regard for the fine artsand believed that the governmentshould actively encourage them. Ihave always believed that the oppor¬tunity to engage in cultural activitieswas one of the things Thomas Jeffer¬son meant by "the pursuit of hap¬piness." But there were more press¬ing, practical problems to solve duringthe nation's infancy.
Benjamin Franklin, a clever diplo¬mat and eminently practical scientist,put it most simply: "All things havetheir season, and with young coun¬tries as with young men, you mustcurb their fancy to strengthen theirjudgment... To America, one school¬master is worth a dozen poets, and
NANCY HANKS is Chairman of the U.S.
National Endowment for ' the Arts and
National Council on the Arts. She was
formerly Assistant to the Undersecretaryof the U.S. Department of Health, Educationand Welfare and later Special Assistant,Special Projects Office, at the White House.She was a member of the U.S. National
Commission for Unesco from 1970 to 1975.
the invention of a machine or the
improvement of an implement is ofmore importance than a masterpieceof Raphael."
In 1789, the year the Constitutioncame into effect to "secure the Bles¬
sings of Liberty to ourselves and ourposterity", George Washington recog¬nized the importance of the arts andlearning. He wrote that members ofCongress should use their "bestendeavors to improve the educationand manners of a people; to accele¬rate progress of art and science: topatronize works of genius... to cherishinstitutions favorable to humanity."Elsewhere he urged the creation of anational university in order to foster"a flourishing state of the arts andsciences."
John Adams, our second President,
explained in a letter to his wife, Abi¬gail, "I must study politics and warthat my sons may have liberty to studymathematics and philosophy In orderto give their children a right to studypainting, poetry, music, architecture."
His priorities were sound for thetime. Physical and political securitycame first on the list of Federal busi¬
ness; trade and economy camesecond. The arts would just have towait. (If Adams' vision was noble, histimetable was too optimistic by half.His son, John Quincy Adams, studiedpolitics too and became the nation'ssixth President.)
The practical bent of the new gov¬ernment marked a pendulum's swingaway from official support of the arts,which had been actively encouragedby the very first European colonizers.In the first half of the 16th century theSpanish built mission schools in thepresent-day southwest. Modelled after
medieval cathedral schools, they
stressed music education in particularand taught students not only how toperform, but how to build instrumentsand compose as well. Unfortunatelythat tradition languished. Many feelthat the arts are still largely ignoredin public education.
The federal government's first invol¬vement with the arts centred on
architectural plans for the capital cityof Washington, D.C. At that time,urban planning was a respected tra¬dition. Early New England towns, forexample, were meticulously designedaround central greens or "commons,"open spaces jointly owned by all citi¬zens. The new capital, built fromscratch above the marshy banks ofthe Potomac, was envisioned as a
monumental city of public buildings ,that would reflect the ideals of the
republic.
Native-born talent being scarce, thecity was designed by Pierre L'Enfant,a gifted if temperamental French en¬gineer who had distinguished himselfin the Continental Army. The Capito|building was designed by WilliamThornton, a physician born in the Vir¬gin Islands and educated in Scotland.Thornton and Etienne Hallett, a
French-born architect, were responsi¬ble for much of the early construction,built with European artisans and slavelabour. But the work was largely obli¬terated when the British burned the
city during the War of 1812.
Following the Treaty of Ghent,which ended the war in 1814, the
Capitol and the White House wererebuilt and the first serious debates
over Federal arts patronage began.At issue, initially, were decorations for
the Capitol. A bill was introduced tocommission "four paintings of theprincipal events of the Revolution" forthe Rotunda.
40
Government support has done much in America to make the arts more accessible to more people.This is particularly true of the past decade, since the foundation of the U.S. National Endowmentfor the Arts which stimulates and supports a wide spectrum of cultural activities.The Arts Endowment, for instance, helps neighbourhood and ethnic groups launch culturalcommunity programmes and it enabled 5,000 schools to bring in professional artists to holdworkshops with students. Photo shows a group of American musicians rehearsing in New York.
Some national legislators doubtedthat it was "just or proper for theGovernment of the United States to
become a patron of the fine arts."But other voices prevailed and JohnTrumbull was appointed to do thework.
A Revolutionary hero and gifted ar¬tist in his younger years, Trumbullmay have passed his prime when hedid these canvases. Even some of his
Congressional supporters expressedgreat disappointment, while originalopponents decried the waste of publicmoney.
Meanwhile, in 1832 a commemora¬
tive sculpture of George Washingtonhad been warmly debated. "Everywise nation has paid honours to thememory of men who have been the
saviours of their country," said onesupporter of the colossal marble por¬trait that would cost $20,000.
"We will keep Washington's monu¬ment in our bosoms," answered ano¬ther. " We will not commit it to
perishable stone. " Though heroicportraits were criticized as relics of
an era "before the lights of reasonpenetrated the darkness of society,"the motion passed. The commissionwas awarded to the pre-eminent Am¬erican sculptor of the time, HoratioGreenough, who lived in Italy.
Conceiving his subject in a neo¬classical pose, Greenough draped"the father of his country" in apparelthat some called a toga, others abath towel. Supporters said the posewas timeless; detractors were scan¬
dalized because Washington wasnaked from the waist up.
Furor followed. As late as 1876 this
sculpture was still "the grandest andmost-criticized work of art about the
Capitol" in one visitor's eyes.Elsewhere in the Capitol conces¬
sions were made to domestic tastes.
Columns were adorned with tobacco
leaves and corn husks instead of
Corinthian fronds. The interior was
decorated by Constantino Burmindi,an Italian fresco painter whose ornatework and foreign style offendedsome Congressmen and nativeartists alike.
To be sure, American painters inparticular lacked the training andexperience to decorate public build¬ings in a classical style; here a steadymarket existed only for portraits,genre painting and easel art. In 1858a committee of artists protested andPresident Buchanan appointed anArts Commission: But it was so inef¬
fective, a critic concluded ten yearslater that "since that time, art has, ina measure, been left to take care ofitself."
Historian Lillian B. Miller says thepreoccupation with issues leading tothe Civil War eclipsed, for a time, anyfurther consideration of federal art
patronage. As a result, any progressin cultural affairs was due to the
initiative of individual artists and the
support of private patrons.
In 1877 a bill was introduced to
establish a national council on art
matters. It failed. In 1891 President
Harrison designated a New Yorkmusic school as the National Conser¬
vatory of Music and Antonin Dvorak ^became its artistic director for three*
41
~ years. But no pUblic money wasappropriated for the institution, whichultimately closed (though its charterremains in effect). In 1910 a Commission of Fine Arts was establishedby President Taft to advise the WhiteHouse and Congress, but it limited itsattentions to the capital city.
It wasn't until the 1930s that thefederal government got involved inthe arts on a national scale-and thenit was for economic rather than cultural reasons. President Franklin Roosevelt created the Works ProgressAdministration (WPA) as one of manyemergency agencies initiated to dealwith that domestic crisis, the GreatDepression.
Millions were unemployed. TheWPA put many of them to work building roads, bridges, schools, libraries,hospitals, parks and other pUblicworks projects. But WPA administrator Harry Hopkins said that artists"have to eat too." So painters, writers, actors and musicians were alsoemployed in a series of innovativepUblic projects.
P RIMARILY, the goal was to giveevery able American a paying
job that would, hopefully, preserve hisor her skills through the crisis. Consequently, the specific nature of thework was of negligible importance. Itis surprising then, just how valuablemuch of the work turned out to be.
Arts critics today credit New YorkCity's pre-eminence as an art capitalto the WPA, which paid painters topaint whatever they chose and oftensold the canvases by the square yardor pound to junk dealers. The artistsproduced 18,000 sculptures; 108,000easel paintings; 239,727 prints; 500,000photographs and 2,500 murals. Amongthose who survived the Depressionas practising artists under the WPAprogramme were Jackson Pollock,Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko,three giants of modern painting.
One of the most ambitious and successful efforts was the Federal Writers' Project, which published theAmerican Guide Series of historicalBaedekers for each of the states.Federal administrators hired bothproven professional writers and hopeless amateurs to compile these localhistories, which were then pUblishedby commercial houses and sold tothe pUblic.
Among the young writers taking onthis herculean task were RichardWright, Conrad Aiken, Saul Bellow,Ralph Ellison, John Cheever, FrankYerby and Kenneth Rexroth. Perhapsbecause the writers' work was chan-
42
nelled in a specific, conventionaldirection, the Guides escaped controversy.
On the other hand, the FederalTheater was attacked from severalsides almost as soon as it began.First, it presented contemporary playsthat offended the moral and politicalsensitivities of some Congressmenwho found them easy targets ofscathing criticism. Also, commercialinterests objected that federal support constituted an unfair subsidy oftheir competition.
The fact seems to have been thatWPA theatre was daring and entertaining while Broadway was stale.Critics applauded and audiencesflocked to the nonprofit productionsof Shakespeare and Gilbert & Sullivanas well as the" Living Newspapers"that addressed contemporary issues.With people like arson Welles andJohn Houseman inVOlved, 158 companies played to more than 25 millionpeople in what many hoped was thebeginning of a diverse, touring "national theater." But controversy killedthe programme.
Elsewhere, WPA-supported orchestras reached an audience of 150 million through live concerts and radio.The Index of American Design catalogued and preserved the history ofthe decorative arts in the UnitedStates. Professional artists of allmedia taught their crafts in newcommunity centres.
In all, the WPA ultimately employed8.5 million persons with 30 milliondependents. Though some of the artwas trash, an entire generation ofAmerican creators survived the Depression practising their artistic skills.
As President Roosevelt said, "Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charitythan the consistent omissions of agovernment frozen in the ice of itsown indifference." With the end ofthe Depression, the federal programme was disbanded, and with it federalsupport of the arts and artists. Buta precedent of sorts had been set.
In 1951 President Harry Trumanasked the old Fine Arts Commissionto study ways that government couldagain help the arts on a nationalscale. It reported to PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower, who in 1958signed a law establishing a NationalCultural Center for Washington.
That facility was ultimately namedThe John F. Kennedy Center for thePerforming Arts in honour of Eisenhower's m"artyred successor who paidunprecedented attention-for a modern president-to cultural matters.Kennedy intended to appoint a fulltime cultural affairs assistant andname a national arts council, but
with his assassination these tasks fellto Lyndon Johnson.
To make a long story short, President Johnson was personally responsible for convincing Congress to passthe bill in 1965 that created the National Endowment for the Arts andits companion agency, the NationalEndowment for the Humanities.
Before signing the law, the PreSIdent said, "In the long history ofman, countless empires and nationshave come and gone. Those whichcreated no lasting works of art arereduced today to short footnotes inhistory's catalogue. Art is a nation'smost precious heritage. For it is inour works of art that we reveal toourselves, and to others, the innervision which guides us as a nation.And where there is no vision, thepeople perish...
"To produce true and lastingresults, our states and our municipalities, our schools and our greatprivate foundations must join forceswith us. It is in the neighbourhoods ofeach community that a nation's art isborn. In countless American townsthere live thousands of obscure andunknown talents. What this bill really
.does is to bring active support to thisgreat national asset, to make fresherthe winds of art in this great land ofours. "
The two agencies have grownsignificantly in a decade. During itsfirst year, the Arts Endowment had aprogramme budget of $2.5 million.This year its programme budget is$82 million. While the growth factor isenormous, it still represents an expenditure of less than 40 cents per capita,or the price of mailing three ordinaryletters.
T HE Endowment's mandate is tostimulate and support the wid
est possible spectrum of cultural activities throughout the nation. Bothindividual professional artists and artsorganizations apply to the Endowmentfor funds. Needless to say, we receivefar more applications than we cansupport with our "modest budget. Sochoices must be made-but not byfederal bureaucrats or politicians.
. The artistic decisions are made byrevolving panels of professional experts in each programme area: music,dance, theatre and the public mediaof film, television and radio, literature,museums, visual arts, and architecture. (In addition to nine disciplinaryprogrammes, there are three interdisciplinary ones focusing on matterslike bloc grants to state arts agenciesand support of neighbourhood, ethnic,and folk arts.)
UNITED STATES
OF EUROPE
ADVOCATED BY
THE FOUNDER
OF
PENNSYLVANIA
IN 1693
WILLIAM PENN (1644-1718)
William Penn, the famous English Quaker, was granteda charter by Charles II in 1681 giving him the Americanterritory which later became known as Pennsylvania,thus perpetuating Penn's name. In 1682 Penn foundedthe city of Philadelphia. A noted jurist, he drew up a"Frame of Government" for Pennsylvania. The in¬fluence of his liberal ideas, enshrined in this document,is noticeable even in the Constitution of the United
States. Penn also played a notable role in the historyof the Quaker movement and is also remembered for
his work to promote peace. The passage below istaken from his Essay Towards the Present and FuturePeace of Europe, published in London in 1693.
Now if the sovereign princes of Europe... would agree to meetby their stated deputies in a general diet, estates, or parlia¬ment, and there establish rules of justice for sovereignprinces to observe one to another; and thus to meet yearly,or once in two or three years at farthest, or as they shall seecause; before which sovereign assembly should be broughtall differences depending between one sovereign and anotherthat cannot be made up by private embassies before thesessions begin; and that if any of the sovereignties thatconstitute these imperial states shall refuse to submit theirclaim or pretensions to them, or to abide and perform thejudgment thereof, and seek their remedy by arms, or delaytheir compliance beyond the time prefixed in their resolutions,ail the other sovereignties, united as one strength, shallcompel the submission and performance of the sentence...To be sure, Europe would quietly obtain the so much desiredand needed peace to her harassed inhabitants; no sovereigntyin Europe having the power and therefore cannot show thewill to dispute the conclusion; and, consequently, peace wouldbe procured and continued in Europe.
William Penn
THE
UNITED STATES
VIEWED BY
A EUROPEAN
OBSERVER
IN 1832
ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE (1805-1859)A French statesman and political philosopher, hevisited the United States in 1831-1832 and on his return
to Paris published a major work, De la Démocratie enAmérique (Democracy in America). Below we presentextracts from this classic study on the United States:
At the extreme borders of the confederated states, uponthe confines of society and the wilderness, a population ofbold adventurers have taken up their abode, who pierce thesolitudes of the American woods. As soon as the pioneerreaches the place which is to serve him for a retreat, he fellsa few trees and builds a log house. Who would not supposethat this poor hut is the asylum of rudeness and ignorance?Yet no sort of comparison can be drawn between the pioneerand the dwelling that shelters him. Everything about him isprimitive and wild, but he wears the dress and speaks the lan¬guage of cities; he is acquainted with the past, curious about
.the future, and ready for argument about the present; he is,in short, a highly civilized being, who consents for a time toinhabit the backwoods, and who penetrates into the wilds ofthe New World with the Bible, an axe, and some newspapers.It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity with whichthought circulates in the midst of these deserts.
America is one of the countries where the precepts ofDescartes are least studied and are best applied.
To the European, a public officer represents a superiorforce; to an American, he represents a right. In America, then,it may be said that no one renders obedience to man, but tojustice and to law.
The influence of the press in America is immense. Itcauses political life to circulate through all thet parts of thatvast territory. Its eye is constantly open to detect the secretsprings of political designs and to summon the leaders of allparties in turn to the bar of public opinion. It rallies theinterests of the community round certain principles and drawsup the creed of every party. When many organs of the pressadopt the same line of conduct, their Influence in the longrun becomes irresistible, and public opinion, perpetually as¬sailed from the same side, eventually yields to the attack.In the United States each separate journal exercises but littleauthority; but the power of the periodical press is secondonly to that of the people.
Alexis de Tocqueville
The p'anels' decisions are reviewedby the Endowment's advisory body,the National Council on the Arts. Its
roster has included many world fa¬mous actors, including James EarlJones, Helen Hayes, Charlton Heston,Sidney Poitier, Gregory Peck andClint Eastwood; legendary musicianssuch as Marian Anderson, Rudolph
Serkln, Duke Ellington, Beverly Sills,Billy Taylor, Van Cliburn, Isaac Stern,Leonard Bernstein and Richard Rod-
gers; dancers such as Agnes de Mille,Edward Villella and Judith Jamison;
painters and sculptors such as JamesWyeth and David Smith; writers likeJohn Steinbeck, Eudora Welty and
Ralph Ellison.
bach project, artist or presentingorganization receives only a relativelymodest amount of money. But thesesmall federal stipends have oftenenabled a struggling writer or painterto complete the project that earnedhim a measure of public recognition.
They have assisted nonprofit thea¬tres and orchestras to fill the gap bet¬ween earned Income and spirallingcosts for another year. They haveenabled 5,000 schools across the land
to bring in professional artists to holdworkshops with students. They havehelped neighbourhood and ethnicgroups launch cultural communityprojects. They have brought major
dance and opera companies intosmall cities and towns.
In summary, this decade-old agencyhas helped Americans everywhereartists and audiences alike to more
fully realize the 200-year-old dreamof "life, liberty and the pursuit ofhappiness" through cultural oppor¬tunity and artistic activity.
Life goes on while we considerfuture plans. In the meantime, thelives of millions have been enriched
at home while the works of American
creators have won gratifying recogni¬tion throughout the world.
Nancy Hanks
43
"The principle of dissent in ademocracy is so precious thateverything must be done to foster it",declared Thomas Jefferson, principalauthor of the Declaration of
Independence. That the principle isstill very much alive in the UnitedStates is clear from these
demonstrations demanding full civil .rights for Blacks, in Washington D.C.in 1963 (above) and in Montgomery,capital of Alabama, in 1965 (centre).Far right, young couples and theirchildren turn out for a peace marchin New York.
Photo Bruce Davidson © Holmes-Lebel, Pari
U.S.A.
THE CONTINUING
REVOLUTIONby William W. Davenport
Fof
OR Americans, the bicentennialof independence is an occasion
much nostalgia, some congratu-
WILLIAM W. DAVENPORT, U.S. writer,Ulm director and university teacher, wasDirector ofReidHall, then the most importantAmerican university centre In Paris, from1968 to 1974. A former professor of Englishand Journalism at the University of Hawaii,he is the author ofmany books and articles ontravel, art and cultural themes. Notable
among his publications are Art Treasures inthe West (Lane-Sunset Books, Menlo Park,California, 1966) and 200 Years of Franco-American Friendship (published by theFrench Ministry of the Quality of Life, 1975).
lation, and more self laceration.
What we ought to have done longago was to extend the basic American
revolutionary principle that "all menare created equal to Blacks andother minorities, notably the Indianswhom our forefathers dispossessed.
The battle for civil rights for Blackscontinues. Its landmarks are the 1957
creation of the national Civil RightsCommission; the 1960 U.S. SupremeCourt decision that stopped discrimi¬nation in restaurants; the March onWashington three years later of 250,000citizens, white and black, demanding
civil rights and complete racial equa¬lity: the formation in 1972 of the"People's State of the Union", uni¬ting twelve activist civil rights groupsfrom American Indians to senior
citizens.
More recently, on 6 August 1975,the Voting Rights Act was renewedto include more than a million Span¬ish-speaking Americans and otherlanguage minorities. A measure ofprogress can be indicated in statistics:in 1965 in the southern states of the
U.S.A. there were 72 elected black
legislators on the national, state and
44
municipal levels,thousand.
Today there are a
There are a hundred civil rightsgroups in the United States. Oldestand most powerful is The AmericanCivil Liberties Union, founded in 1920"to champion the rights of man setforth in the Declaration of Indepen¬dence and the Constitution". It nowhas 50 affiliates in 46 states of the
Union with a membership of 250,000.Its record of test cases fought to theSupreme Court ranges from defendingthe right of Jehovah's Witnesses notto salute the national flag to lifting thecensorship ban on Joyce's Ulysses.
This Watchdog of civil liberties nowturns its attention to the plight of theAmerican Indians, the 400,000 des¬cendants of the original settlers ofAmerica. The expropriation of theirland, the destruction of their way oflife were vividly recounted in 1970 inDee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wound¬ed Knee. This bestselling book, theUncle Tom's Cabin of our times,aroused America to the existence of
one more racial injustice.
In 1973, 200 members of the Ameri¬can Indian Movement seized theSouth Dakota hamlet of WoundedKnee to overthrow the elected tribal
government of the Sioux reservation.
Although it was an intramural struggle,the White House sent representatives
A clarion call
for women's rights200 years ago
Abigail Adams
At the end of March 1776, three months before the Decla¬
ration of Independence, Abigail Adams formulated a forth¬
right claim for women's rights In a letter to her husband
John Adams, one of the signatories of the Declaration and
later to become the second President of the United States.
"By the way", she wrote, "I desire you would remember
the ladies and be more generous and favourable to them
than your ancestors 1 Do not put such unlimited power Intothe hands of the husbands. Remember all men would be
tyrants If they could. If particular care and attention Is not
paid to the ladles, we are determined to foment a rebellion,
and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws In which
we have no voice or representation."
An appropriate postscript to these forceful words Is this
observation by the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, who
visited the United States almost 150 years ago (see also
page 43) :
"If I were asked to what the singular prosperity andgrowing strength of the [American people] ought mainly to
be attributed, I should reply : To the superiority of theirwomen".
to meet with the Sioux to discuss
compensation for the lost lands thatour ancestors expropriated and tobegin an intensive investigation of allIndian grievances.
in the same year, one of America'sgreatest actors, Marlon Brando, madeheadlines by refusing to accept theAcademy Award and denouncing themotion picture industry for "degradingthe Indian and making a mockery ofhis character." Brando's efforts to
rectify the wrongs of the past enjoyedthe full support of the younger gen
eration of Americans, now called uponto expiate "the sins of the fathers."
I wish to speak of this youngergeneration, inheritors of the AmericanRevolution and the American pen¬chant for self criticism, a virtue thatProfessor Winks, elsewhere in thisissue, has properly identified as testi¬mony that ours is a truly open society.(See article page 9).
I was associated with this genera¬tion during six crucial years, from w1968 to 1974 when I was director of r
45
,Reid Hall, then the most importantAmerican university centre in Paris.My contacts with some 5,000 studentsduring this period taught me much.Their passionate concern for justice,peace, racial equality, and civil rights"convinced me that the principles ofour revolution are very much alive,that we are still a revolutionarypeople.
The dominant tone of many of thesestudents, especially their leaders, wasthat of rage. The students were enrag¬ed, personally affronted by the socialinjustice and the cruelty and stupidity
of the war in Vietnam. They protested.They dissented. Those who condemn¬ed them must have forgotten ThomasJefferson's words: "The principle ofdissent in a democracy is so preciousthat everything must be done to fosterit."
It is a measure of the continuingviability of the American Revolutionthat an unpopular war could be stopp¬ed by the disapproval of dissentingcitizens. It is another testimony tothe continuity of the revolution that anaroused citizenry, fully informed by afree press, could drive a president
from office for attempting to subvertthe American system of restrainingexecutive power through the revolu¬tionary concept of checks andbalances.
We have the revolutionary tradition,the indispensable freedom, the salu¬tary habit of self criticism, the oldAmerican belief in progress and selfimprovement, above all the will toimplement the civil liberties explicitin the Bill of Rights. America waspromises, and is.
William W. Davenport
Citizen Paine (CONTINUED FROM PAGE 30)
attention of Congress to his penury."There is something peculiarly hard",he wrote to Washington, "that thecountry which ought to have been tome a home has scarcely afforded mean asylum."
A number of states finally recogniz¬ed their indebtedness to this franc-
tireur who had done so much for the
Revolution, and they rewarded him forhis services. Congress followed suitby voting him a gratuity of 3,000 dol¬lars "In consideration of his services,and the benefits produced thereby."
in the seclusion of his small farm¬
house in Bordentown, New Jersey,Paine had planned to lead a peacefulexistence devoted to his scientific
hobbies (his favourite brain-child wasthe model of a daringly-conceivediron bridge). However, he decided torevisit England, and when he set offfor Europe in the summer of 1787 hehad little inkling that fifteen yearswould pass before he would returnto his "much loved America".
While in London Paine worked hard
at making facts about America knownto the English. But his real motive indoing so was to provoke a reform ofthe British Constitution and extend
the franchise. He restated his profes¬sion of faith in his Prospects on theRubicon: "... above all, I defend thecause of humanity."
When the French Revolution broke
out, Paine saw in it the influence of
its American predecessor, and he feltthat his dream of a world republic wasat last coming true.
He expounded his views in his mostimportant work, the Rights of Man: thecause of the French people, he wrote,was that of ail Europe and indeed ofthe entire world. Through his travelsin France Paine made contact with the
leaders of the Revolution, and afterthe flight of Louis XVi he published thefirst republican manifesto.
The second part of Rights of Manwas published in 1792: it was consi¬dered seditious, and Paine becameembroiled in legal proceedings. Pub¬lic hatred of him was rampant, to theextent that effigies of him were burn¬ed: and the storm aroused by hiswritings eventually led to his trial in
absentia and the verdict against himof high treason.
Meanwhile the National Assembly inFrance had conferred French citizen¬
ship on Paine, and four départementshad elected him to the Convention.
He was given a hero's welcome, andchose to represent the Pas-de-Calais,taking his seat amongst the moderategroup of deputies.
He was elected to sit on the com¬
mittee charged with the drafting of anew constitution. But he also did all
he could to save the life of Louis XVI,and courageously voted against thedeath sentence passed on the "ty¬rant", which incurred him the hatredof the extremist followers of Robes¬
pierre in the Convention.
The Reign of Terror put an end toPaine's high hopes of what he termeda sovereign republic. His arrest, tra¬ditionally blamed on Robespierre, wasin fact the result of a conspiracywhich involved the United States' Mi¬
nister in France, Gouverneur Morris,an aristocrat and anglophile, togetherwith other of Paine's enemies.
First of all he was stripped of hisparliamentary immunity by a decree ofRobespierre which deprived him of hisFrench citizenship. Then, three dayslater on 28 December 1793, it was asa British subject that he was throwninto prison. At the time he was aboutto publish the first part of his Age ofReason, a work in which his belief ina Supreme Being is clearly manifest.
Paine tried in vain to plead hisAmerican nationality, and GouverneurMorris, on whom he had been relyingfor help, managed to prevent any in¬tervention by the United Statesgovernment. Neither a petition signedby American residents in Paris norall the efforts of Paine's own friends
met with any success.Imprisoned at the height of the
Reign of Terror, Paine saw many rep¬resentatives of the people go to theguillotine, and he himself only justavoided sharing their fate. Not untilthree months after the fall of Robes¬
pierre, on 9 Thermidor (27 July 1794),after eighteen months in prison, wasPaine released through the efforts ofMorris' successor, James Monroe, and
reinstated by the Convention as aFrench citizen and deputy.
Although weak and ill from his im¬prisonment, Paine continued to write,and the fruits of his meditations in
prison, the second part of the Ageot Reason, were published beforelong. This contained criticism of theBible ; and other works developedPaine's ideas on the French Revo¬lution.
Ageing, saddened by circumstancesand disappointed in his hopes, Painefinally returned to America towardsthe end of 1802. He was warmly wel¬comed by Jefferson, now President;but his enemies, headed by Gouver¬neur Morris, combined against himand sought to deprive him of the rightto vote.
More persecution followed the pub¬lication of the Age of Reason in Am¬erica, and the various churches werequick to malign this free-thinking infi¬del, though Paine withstood theirattacks without giving way.
in spite of everything, the UnitedStates remained for him the promisedland of freedom, apart from the shad¬ow on the horizon of the "savagepractice" of the Negro slave trade,against which he took up arms again.He published several more pamphlets.
Paine spent his last years on hisfarm in New Rochelle which had been
given to him by the state of NewYork. The financial compensationsawarded him by his adopted countryenabled him to live the rest of his life
in comfort.
Thomas Paine died on the morningof 8 June 1809 in New York, agedseventy-two. The Quakers, who re¬garded him as a renegade, refusedhim the burial he had wished in their
cemetery, and in the end he wasburied on his farm in New Rochelle.
His remains were taken back to
England three years later, but theirfinal resting-place is unknown.
Even though the mortal remains ofThomas Paine have disappeared, thememory of this brave and compas¬sionate man, who did so much for thecauses of freedom and the human
race, will continue to burn brightly.
oz<CC
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Jacques Janssens e
46
Americans as they see the United StatesCONTINUED FROM PAGE 11
even hostile conclusions about the
United States might be rooted in solidinformation. But they no longer askto be liked, for two hundred years ofhistory have surely taught this nowmature, even politically aged, nationthat one does not bank friendshipbetween nations as one does betweenindividuals.
One wit has suggested that Ameri¬cans have left the play-pen for thepsychiatrist's couch, no longer want¬ing to be liked so much as wantingto be understood. Perhaps so; yetone suspects that most Americanswould settle, two hundred years deepinto their history, for merely beingstudied.
The year of the Bicentennial is ayear of reflection for many Americans.Their political candidates, newspapereditorials, university classrooms, andtelevision commentators, all are inter¬rogating the past as a means of stak¬ing a clear claim on the future. In asense America has always been a
land of beginning again, where themyth of the eternal return has func¬tioned with a peculiar strength. In asense, American history has alwaysbeen in the future.
Just as Americans carry their senseof identity with them wherever theygo, remaining loyal to their rootsdespite an oft-commented uponwanderlust, they also question thatidentity, wishing to press themselvesto do better. They are children ofpride, and they know that pride servesthem best when it is constantly chal¬lenged, tested, and renewed.
In this era of the mass media, weall are aware that much that passesfor truth, about America or any othernation, is a series of images and slo¬gans. To strike through the mask tothe substance, one must study Am¬erica, as one must study any complexsociety, and not be taken in by thosewho, whether with favourable or nega¬tive intent, offer up generalizations ona nation they know only on the surface.
Americans remain optimistic in thatthey feel it is not yet revealed to themwhat they may be, that Walt Whitmanmay still be their seer. They rest moreeasily with their contradictions thesedays, knowing that some are moreapparent than real and that many ofthose that are genuine sustain thedynamic tension of the society.
The American people are still di¬verse, complex, a paradox; the tensionwithin them still manifests itself in that
dynamism; for as Whitman wrote, inSong of Myself (for which he meantAmerica), "Do I contradict myself?So I contradict myself. I am large.I contain multitudes."
Robin W. Winks
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