May 6, 1969
Page 11501
PROF. ALAN K. CAMPBELL, FIFTH DEAN OF MAXWELL GRADUATE SCHOOL OF CITIZENSHIP AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
(Mr. HANLEY asked and was given permission to extend his remarks at this point in the RECORD and to include extraneous matter.)
Mr. HANLEY. Mr. Speaker, last Friday evening, one of the most distinguished scholars in our Nation was installed as the fifth dean of the Maxwell Graduate School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University -- Prof. Alan K. "Scotty" Campbell. Dr. Campbell now joins an illustrious group of men including State regent and internationally known author, Stephen Kent Bailey, and NATO Ambassador Harlan Cleveland, both of whom are former Maxwell deans.
I have known "Scotty" Campbell for many years and consider him a warm friend. I am proud that his career of dedicated public and academic service has included a lengthy tenure in my home town for, like his predecessors, he has brought a measure of greatness to our area.
Dr. Campbell has established himself as one of the preeminent scholars in the field of urban studies. Planners, developers, urban administrators, renewal experts, and dedicated students from throughout the world have come to Syracuse to study under him. He has developed one of the finest metropolitan studies schools in the Nation, and has earned the respect and esteem of both his peers and his students.
Mr. Speaker, given this background, it is little wonder that the main address for the evening was delivered by our colleague from the other body, Senator EDMUND S. MUSKIE. Senator MUSKIE has established himself as an expert in the field of metropolitan studies, and as chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations, has worked ceaselessly to promote the welfare of our urban centers. His appearance Friday evening was a tribute both to himself and to Dean Campbell.
Mr. Speaker, Senator MUSKIE had a strong message in that speech, one which I believe every Member of this body would do well to read and ponder. I include it at this point:
EXCERPTS FROM REMARKS BY SENATOR EDMUND S. MUSKIE AT THE MAXWELL SCHOOL OF CITIZENSHIP AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY,
MAY 2, 1969
Nowhere was it more apparent than on college campuses that something new and very necessary was being added to the American political scene last year.
That something was a renewed sense of involvement, born of student unrest with the world of the adult.
The spirited "give and take" sessions that took place between candidate and student did as much if not more, to focus our attention on the Nation's goals and objectives, and force us all to confront our list of national priorities than any other series of events of the 1968 campaign.
It produced a needed "shot in the arm" for our political system, and has since helped move it along toward needed reform and change. When our Constitution is amended -- to provide for more democratic election procedures -- we should call it the Students' amendment -- for they, more than any other active group, will have brought it about.
The theme you have selected -- The University and its Communities -- is timely.
One of the more striking aspects of the contemporary student movement is that it is worldwide.
This movement, as all such movements before it, is challenging all the traditional community forms as well as social structure. It is an international "happening."
It is a process as old as time, but it is just as thrilling and significant as it was the first time it happened. And, in their quest for certainty and predictability, the young have forced all manner of convention and complacency to undergo careful examination and scrutiny.
One of the most significant advantages to come from this has been an eventual realization that as a people we are not all that we profess to be either to ourselves, or to others. We have been held up to light -- "candled" as it were -- and we have been found to be wanting in character. We have learned that substance is more than rhetoric.
This process has given the realization that not all of us, when challenged to become tolerant, do, in fact, become tolerant. In fact, some of us have proven to be less than tolerant, flexible, or willing to rely on reason. Not enough have responded to the urgings to build and dedicate a better world. This troubles the young. It should trouble all of us.
Despite the deepening character of this dilemma, many Americans do recognize the need to step back from the pace of their own lives, and take another look at the injustices of society, the inadequacies of effort and the incompleteness of life for far too many.
Nowhere are our sensitivities to crisis touched more than by our cities.
Tension, conflict, militancy and dissent threaten to replace commerce, industry, culture and creativity.
Ghettos have become a common device for stifling the flow of humanity into the mainstream of America. All too often blight, deterioration, and rejection have followed.
We have become far too accustomed to the face of America's urban crisis. It is mainly black. It is without resources. It is despair. It is imprisonment.
In 1968, another half million white Americans fled the cities of this country. They left behind a city with a shaky and shrinking tax base, a school system badly in need of uplift, and few industrial or job-producing opportunities for those forced to remain behind.
Is it any wonder that today's youth questions our system of values, and challenges our apparent order of priorities? We should all understand youth's anger and frustration....
Anger because too much of the "Other America" remains disinherited from the benefits and advantages of an affluent economic system;
Frustration because there is no logic, sense, or reason to what we continue to do to our air, our land, our water -- knowing the calamitous results that lie ahead;
Anger because we boast 100 months of unprecedented economic growth and expansion, but we seem powerless to provide more than promises for the 22 million Americans still existing in poverty;
Frustration because we produced 8.5 million new jobs over the past five years, but we have 8.4 million Americans still on welfare.
Our anger and our frustrations reflect the fact that we have made big promises to ourselves -- but too many have not been kept.
The Nation's general prosperity and economic growth have not reached the needs of the hard-core poor and unemployed.
Job discrimination remains a serious problem and minority employment is still concentrated in low-income, low-status jobs.
Business opportunities for minority entrepreneurs are too few and too slow in coming.
The nation's housing needs have been documented.
Hostile attitudes toward the city verifies the assertion that we are an urban nation with a rural bias.
We are, as John Gardner aptly stated: "A massively impersonal society" through our growing isolation from one another -- between black and white, rich and poor, city and country. It is an isolation that exists because we built "dams" when we should have been building "bridges." It is an isolation that continues to grow greater each day.
It is more important to understand that the crisis we face is not one of public policy or the lack of it. We are already clearly on record as favoring full employment, equal opportunity, adequate housing, the elimination of poverty.
The problem is not therefore one of public policy; rather, one of national priorities. It is a problem we will solve only when we commit ourselves and our resources to its solution.
If we are to stay abreast of our needs, and meet our responsibilities to one another, we must be honest enough to see things as they really are.
The crisis we face is one of our own making, and its solution requires the complete involvement and cooperation of all of our social forces.
We have to be honest enough to realize that we inhibit human spirit and the incentive to work by not accommodating those who are the disadvantaged.
We have to be honest enough to admit that ghetto housing, complete with crumbling plaster and the smell of garbage and human waste, mocks our guarantee of "decent housing and a suitable environment" for every American.
We have to do these things, because national priorities are not self-fulfilling. They do not respond to a policy of drift nor to an attitude of indifference.
For the last several years, we have reassured ourselves that once the Vietnam War ended, new programs for our neglected cities, and new funds for the needs of our people, would be available.
Now we know that this assumption is unjustified. Pressure from the military to commit our resources to new weapons systems is beginning to be felt. The President has recommended deployment of a modified Sentinel system. Should the Vietnam War end we know that defense spending is not going to tail off automatically.
National priorities, if they are to be changed, must submit to thoughtful study and sound judgment from many sides. They will not shift automatically.
Domestic needs, if they are to receive the massive commitment of funds that they require, must be given the sense of priority they deserve.
Within the next few months, decisions will be made by the Administration, the Congress, and by the people that will have consequences to be felt long after the 1970's.
The ABM is only one of many, but it is the first. And in this world, we now know we cannot have both guns and butter in the manner which we have thought possible. We cannot afford it.
Thus we will be making decisions about the kind of society we desire.
We will be making decisions that will either reflect our commitment to peace, to a sane defense policy and a just life for all Americans, or to a policy of continued international tension, escalation of defense systems, and mutual distrust and suspicion.
We will be making decisions that will determine whether we continue to drive the young generation out of the democratic process, or whether that process will again be made responsive to all Americans.
One point should be stressed -- even to the point of overstatement.
None of these choices can be made effectively unless approached and resolved through reasoned argument, no matter how emotionally charged they may appear to be, or how impassioned the plea on their behalf.
Today's college student represents the "honest generation," and if it is at war -- it is at war with hypocrisy and inertia. I would plead with that "honest generation."
My offer is simple. Be as concerned with the issues of peace as with the issue of war. Be as concerned about the ABC's of urban life as with the ABM's of weaponry.
Be as concerned about hunger and poverty as with the draft and the Institute of Defense Analysis.
Be as concerned about political solutions as political problems.