June 3, 1970
Page 18094
SENATOR MUSKIE SPEAKS ON THE ROLE OF DISSENT AND THE NEED FOR TOLERANCE IN AMERICA TODAY
Mr. MONDALE. Mr. President, our Nation today faces an enormous task of reconstructing the unity, the harmony, and the shared visions which have made our Nation great.
The specter of violence and repression is growing ever greater as frustrations rise and as faith diminishes in the ability of reason and the democratic process to solve our problems and bring us together again.
In a remarkable speech to the graduating class of William and Mary College, the Senator from Maine (Mr. MUSKIE) challenged us to hold fast to our conviction and, at the same time, "to learn to tolerate a little."
Unity and vision cannot arise from a forced conformity or a repression of dissent. As Senator MUSKIE said: Civilization has benefited whenever men had the courage to hold to their human convictions in the face of reprisal, and our country will not endure as a free society unless men are willing to do so.
But conviction and ideology must be tempered not with "caution" or "moderation" but, rather, with tolerance and respect.
The alternative is frightening to contemplate. Already, we have seen Kent State, Augusta, Jackson, new violence on the streets – now from the right – and an increasing tempo of intolerance.
I commend Senator MUSKIE's words to the attention of the Senate because I think they portray very vividly the need to retain commitment, conviction, and a passion for justice along with tolerance and respect for the ideas and ideals of others.
I ask unanimous consent that his speech to the graduating class of William and Mary be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the address was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
A TIME TO SEEK A TRUCE
It is not hard to imagine the topics most commencement speakers will choose this year. In one form or another, it is dissent on the American campus.
Some will find it good per se, and will content themselves with praising those who mount it.
Others will warn of its consequences, as did the President after the shooting at Kent State, without commenting on the justice of the dissent, or the madness of the means used to suppress it.
Perhaps some will look beyond the phenomenon of dissent to its causes and effects in the America of 1970. I hope to do that today.
It ought to be said, at the beginning, that dissent is an activity, and not a value. There has been widespread dissent in our country, and the verdict of history upon it is very mixed.
The patriots who questioned the authority of the British Parliament to govern the American colonies two hundred years ago in this very city were dissenters.
A great many military coups in Latin America and Africa have been, in a sense, forceful dissents against the policies of democratically elected governments.
In our own country, governors have dissented against the decisions of the Supreme Court, and. have interposed their authority, on behalf of some of the people of their states, against their enforcement. The object of that dissent was not social justice, but preservation of the status quo.
On the other hand, the dissent of thousands of brave blacks and whites – in Birmingham, in Selma, and in Mississippi – stirred the conscience of the nation, and produced three civil rights laws after a century of inaction.
And I believe the dissent of millions of young Americans has had much to do with turning our government away from its policy of escalation in Vietnam.
So history teaches us to judge dissent, not as a thing in itself, but as an activity to be measured by what it opposes, and by what it forwards in its place.
Second, it should be remembered always that in much of the world, questions about the value of dissent are academic. The expression of dissent is simply impossible or fraught with such hazards to life and liberty as to sharply restrict its effect.
The suppression of Russian writers and scientists, and of the students in Prague, is testimony to this; so is the puritanical terror of the Red Guards, which has reached into the life of every Chinese village to attack the thoughts, as well as the deeds, of unenthusiastic citizens. So, to our consternation, are the arrests of South Vietnamese who have dared to take positions contrary to those of the government in Saigon.
Therefore, if we are often divided and angry about the merits of dissent in this country, it is not our way to settle the argument finally by becoming a police state, and enforcing, upon the conflict of minds, the resolution of the gun and club.
Third, we should understand that even in a society of free institutions, such as ours, there is a constant pressure on all to conform to the opinions of the majority. And the price of non-conformity has often been very high.
To be an abolitionist in the South, or a pro-slavery man in the North during the Civil War, was an invitation to suffering.
Simply to have been a German-American during the First World War was enough to have your patriotism suspected, your language and culture abhorred, and your every move watched by vigilante groups of your fellow citizens.
In the early 1950's, the nation endured a Salem witch-hunt led by the late Senator Joseph McCarthy, in the course of which otherwise sensible Americans began to suspect their neighbors of harboring treacherous thoughts.
And today, in the bumper stickers that read "America – Love It or Leave It," one can see the bitter impatience with which many people regard those who challenge the system for the injustice and hypocrisy they see in it. The Vice President has given more articulate voice to the same defensive sentiments.
Indeed, the air today is alive with pressures to conform to the opinions or behavior of one group or another.
From the spokesmen of the Administration, there is pressure to become part, of, or at least yield to, a "silent majority." It is commonly assumed that this majority is white, which makes it impossible for a substantial portion of our population to join it; that it is middle-class, which leaves out what begins to look like a preponderance of the electorate.
But as it may no longer be a majority, it is also becoming less silent. We saw that in lower Manhattan recently, when construction workers let out their pent-up fury against young demonstrators who had shouted their rage against the country and all its works – and who, for their part, demand an equally rigid conformity to their opinions from all with whom they come in contact.
At the heart of that struggle, there was the issue of our country's basic worth and direction. The demonstrators, many of them students who had enjoyed the unparalleled economic well-being of middle-class youth, were saying No! with signs and epithets to the society that had provided it; the construction workers, who had struggled for a share in American abundance and won it, were saying Yes! with their fists.
The workers could not understand the desperation of the students, some of whom face the possibility of serving in a war they find unconscionable and futile.
The students could not understand that the workers have an investment in the American system that they are willing to die for.
There was, and is, a tremendous chasm between the two. They were united only in violence – the one verbal, the other physical, each of them alternate steps up the ladder to confrontation.
If that violence – between those who challenge and those who affirm the American system – broke out only in Manhattan that day, it is latent throughout the land.
The young dissenters fear that the government will be deaf to their cries, and will continue heedlessly to commit their lives to military adventures abroad. Those who have an investment in the society fear that the dissenters will bury it in the rubble of the institutions they seek to destroy.
And that fear turns each group inward, making it at once more hostile to the other, and more demanding of the total commitment of its own members. Rocks are thrown, and the clubs come out. Rhetoric becomes inflamed – "effete snobs", "fascist pigs", "bums", "murderers" – until finally political dialogue disappears, and the two sides lob grenades of verbal abuse over the walls of their encampments. There is no quarter given, no attempt to understand, no capacity to feel what the other side feels.
Then triggers are pulled at Kent State, Augusta, and Jackson State. They are pulled out of fear – fear that has so cauterized the sensibilities that at last a man cannot imagine what it is for another man to take a bullet in the flesh.
For a moment, the country is shocked out of its trauma of fear. People begin to wonder what will happen, if we go on this way. Kent State had that effect, because the dead students were white and middle-class. Blacks have been asking that question for many years before Jackson State.
But there is no answer from the White House, nor any suggestion of an alternative. And after a while, the shock passes – as it passed after Watts, and Newark, and Detroit, and Chicago. The country returns to its various encampments – its separate fears.
Is that the way it must be?
Must we live in fear of "those others"? Must we demand that they conform to our opinions and interests, or face our eternal hostility? Must we arm ourselves in readiness for civil war, and speak only through bullhorns across the lines of class or race or age?
I believe this to be possible in America in the 1970's. I do not believe it is inevitable – not if we set our minds against it and our wills to work.
I think it is time we sent our emissaries to those"others". I think it is time to seek a truce, and to use that time to learn – to feel – for the other – and finally, hopefully, to learn to tolerate a little.
No one should expect that any man, or event, or policy, can "bring us together" in the sense that we all might come to share a common opinion or interest. America is too diverse for that, and the winds of change are so strong now that we are bound to be divided in our response of them. But we can expect and should demand from our national leadership – and from ourselves – tolerance for others when they dissent from us, tolerance for non-conformity to our chosen views.
For most graduates in this tumultuous year, the time of street demonstrations and violent dissent is ending. Most of you will, in the next few years, marry and take on family responsibilities. You will still have opinions, but you will also have jobs. You will be thinking less about student revolution, and more about how to live useful and productive lives.
You may become – indeed, you may already be – members of the "silent majority". Or you may hold views that do not conform to those prevailing in your community.
You may find yourself believing that the treatment of black citizens in your community is an outrage to the human spirit. And you may find the expression of that belief to be costly.
You may find yourself in strong opposition to the course your country is taking abroad. And you may suffer because of that at the hands of your employer, your fellow workers, or your neighbors.
You may be so incensed by the pollution of your environment that you must speak out against an industry which your community believes is essential to its economic growth. And you may pay a price for that.
When the tide of emotionalism about crime is on the rise in your community, you may resist the simple solution of repressive laws, because you believe them ultimately ineffective and a threat to personal liberty. That may have its costs as well.
If your dissent has enjoyed a limited immunity during your college years, that immunity will end as you leave.
Then the question will be whether you have the power of intellectual discrimination, and the moral integrity, to stand against what you believe to be wrong, to fight for what you believe to be right, and to pay the price of your dissent.
It will be far easier to conform, far more comfortable to join one of the embattled camps. It was easier to hate German-Americans in the First War than to defend them from the attacks of their fellow citizens. It was easier to indulge Joe McCarthy in the early fifties than to resist him publicly. It was easier for Southerners to vilify civil rights workers in the sixties than to speak out against the abuse of blacks in the South. It was easier for students to join in demolishing university offices than to stand against that vandalism.
Conforming to the prevailing views of one's community is always easier – on everything but one's conscience.
Non-conformity is nearly always costly – to everything but one's conscience.
And the men and women who, while holding to their own convictions, are willing to step out of the encampments of their class or race, and seek out those "others" who oppose them – will be doing more than a favor for their conscience. They will be beginning a dialogue that may result in a more tolerant America, one where people can feel some part of the fear and hope and need that others feel.
There is a practical reason why men and women must step out of their encampments – it is not possible for any one group to exercise enough influence or leadership to initiate change; coalitions make change. Perhaps we need new kinds of coalitions. But since it is coalitions that can bring about the changes that are required in our society, we must learn to work together apart from our encampments.
This is extremely difficult to do in times of crisis, at home or abroad. Many student dissenters view those who have engaged the nation in Vietnam as war criminals; many supporters of the war regard the dissenters as cowardly traitors. Many blacks feel, in the light of events such as the shootings at Augusta and Jackson, that there is no hope for them in America save through their violent retaliation. Many whites believe their jobs, property, and even lives to be threatened by blacks.
In such a time, there is a tremendous pressure on the members of each group to conform to the group's opinions – to share the group's fears, its hates, its attitudes and enemies. A student is a cop-out who doubts the moral guilt of those in office; a man is unpatriotic who says the war must end tomorrow; those who try to work with the other race are either Uncle Toms or negro-lovers.
All that one can say to those who endure such pressure is that civilization has benefited whenever men had the courage to hold to their human convictions in the face of reprisal; and that our country will not endure as a free society unless enough men are willing to do so.
War between the fearful, a silent conformity enforced by the state, or a dialogue marked by tolerance – three very different futures for America. The men who worked here two centuries ago were brave enough, and intellectually disciplined enough, to choose the last. They believed in the right to dissent, and protected it; and they judged the value of dissent by what it opposed, and what it espoused. They believed the open commerce of ideas preferable to divisions of opinion into hostile camps. The democracy they devised presumed that men could be able to communicate with each other in a reasonable way, and not only through slogans and force. It presumed that accommodation, and not fear, would characterize the American society.
One would hope that their descendants on this green today would so live as to do them honor.