Dan Smoot Report #435
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THE o IJ(JII Sm oot Report Vol. 9, No. 51 (Broadcast 435) December 23, 1963 Dallas, Texas DAN SMOOT THE IDLE WIND There is no terror in your threats ...for I am armed so stmng in honesty that they pass by me as the idle wind, which 1 respect not. - Shakespeare Top leaders of the Kennedy administration felt that strict constitutional limitations rendered the federal government incapable of meeting the needs of the nation, and of the world, in this century. They often scorned the old American federal system (which left state governments with sovereign rights and, thus, prohibited concentration of power in the central government) be cause they did not believe that such fragmentation of political power was adequate for the needs of society in the modern world. Programs of the Republican administration of former President Eisenhower reflected the same convictions; but Eisenhower spokesmen were less forthright about their convictions: they generally o gave more lip service to American constitutional principles than new frontier leaders did. During the Eisenhower regime, therefore, political apathy and confusion were widespread, be cause it was hard to come to grips with Eisenhower. If you were "conservative" (without real un derstanding of the term) you could find comfort in public pronouncements of "conservative" busi nessmen on the Eisenhower team. Or, if you were "liberal," you could find comfort in Eisenhower programs which ignored constitutional limitations and put the federal government in the role of a totalitarian welfare state. The relative candor of new frontiersmen, in advocating the same kinds of programs which Eisenhower had advocated, created sharp controversies which the Eisenhower vagueness never aroused. Consequently, new frontier programs, though not different in kind from those of the previous administration, evoked more opposition. Whereas programs of totalitarian liberalism met little determined resistance during eight Eisenhower years, the same, or similar, programs were approaching stalemate after less than three years of his successor. THE DAN SMOOT REPORT, a magazine published every week by The Dan Smoot Report, Inc., mailing address P. O. Box 9538, Lakewood Station, Dallas, Texas 75214; Telephone TAylor 1-2303 �office address 6441 Gaston Avenue ). Subscription rates: $10.00 a year, $6.00 for 6 months, $18.00 for two years. For first class mail $12.50 a year; by airmail (including APO and FPO) $14.50 a year. Reprints of specific issues: 1 copy for 25¢; 6 for $1.00; 50 for $5.50; 100 for $10.00 - each price for bulk mailing to one person. Add 2% sales tax on all orders originating in Texas for Texas delivery. o Copyright by Dan Smoot, 1963. Second class mail privilege authorized at Dallas, Texas. No reproductions permitted. Page 401 The Congressional Quarterly, November 22, en a choice, would reject such liberal programs 1963, reveals that, of 25 major pieces of legisla as foreign aid. (1) tion supported by the administration, 7 were en acted into law. There was little likelihood that the First Session of the 88th Congress would ap T hough President Kennedy was the arch polit prove one more than one-third of the Kennedy ad ical foe of constitutional conservatism, conserv ministration's legislative program. atives were sincerely shocked and saddened by the assassination. Liberals, who idolized the Pres The main opposition to t�e late President's ident, expressed little resentment for the mur programs was not partisan - in the superficial derer but heaped venom on conservatives. sense of Republicans opposing measures proposed The Reverend J. Claude Evans, Chaplain of by Democrats. For the most part, conservative Southern Methodist University, Dallas, delivered Republicans in Congress who opposed new fron a memorial sermon for President Kennedy, tier measures had the same motives as Democrats saymg: who joined them: they considered the measures harmful, unconstitutional. "The word of President Kennedy's assassina tion came to me while I was ...in Chicago .... Public opposition to the new frontier was, com Could it be true that Dallas who had spit on a pletely divorced from partisan politics. Constitu vice-presidential candidate, clobbered with a tional conservatives are not primarily interested in picket sign the country's Ambassador to the United Nations, had now killed the President the welfare of political parties. They cling to the of the United States? The reality of the fact fundamental principles of government written in lent unreality to the moment. to the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They sup "I hastened to the airport hoping to catch an port politicians who uphold those principles, be early plane back to Dallas ....An airport cause they think a great nation should cherish the limousine driver preached a short sermon to foundations of its greatness. those of us on his bus. 'Jesus Christ, what's wrong with people who would do something like that?' . I did not tell him I was from Dallas . With President Kennedy in the White House, "How long will it take for us in Dallas to see the great political issues were becoming widely that we participate in the crucifixion of Jesus conc rned about self understood. Before the assassination, there was a by a cultural climate so . � . growing sense of optimism, almost of jubilation, that it unleashes a demomc radIcahsm that ends President? The cross of among American conservatives. The prospect in the murder of the Jesus is nailed up afresh by the radical rightists was bright that the presidential election of 1964 who use freedom to deny freedom to alternate would offer the people of America, for the first views .... time in this generation, a clear choice between "It is ironic that a maniac of the radical left totalitarian liberalism and constitutional conserv perpetrated the actual assassination of Presi�ent fo� the rIght atism. Constitutional conservatives were elated Kennedy. But this is no argument. of he by this prospect, because they believe that voters, ness of the right ....The radIc ,,;hsm . � if given a clear choice, will vote for candidates extreme leftist of the forties, the radIcal rIghtIsts who stand firmly on the Constitution. The same of today are blood brothers .... prospect seemed to fill liberals with bitterness, "Whatever else President Kennedy stood for, possibly because liberals also realize that their he did stand for the free discussion of issues in political philosophy will be rejected, if put to a a free and open society. And this �s what we are fair contest at the polls. One indication that lib in danger of losing . We are bemg th�eate.ned in the dark, who slmk mto eral leaders are coming to such realization may be by those who operate deserted buildings with high-powered guns and found in the Fulbright Memorandum of 1961 - ammunition, who write anonymous letters at in which Senator J. William Fulbright (Demo tacking professors at Southern Methodist Uni crat, Arkansas) admitted that the people, if giv- versity and circulate them among the student Page 402 body and potential contributors. We are in dan "hysteria" about the dangers of communism. At ger of being frightened into silence by being torney General Robert F. Kennedy has been labelled 'socialists' or 'do gooders' or communist bluntly vocal in this regard. In the fall of influenced ...." 1961, (2) Attorney General Kennedy invited Walter Reu Dr. Evans, praising "free discussion of issues ther to submit recommendations about control in a free and open society," seems outraged that ling and silencing the "radical right." The Reu conservatives have freedom to discuss anything. ther memorandum to Robert Kennedy (submit This one-dimensional viewpoint typifies "liberal ted December 19, 1961), recommended, among ism" in our time. other things, that "radical rightists" be placed on The Sacramento [California] Bee said: the Attorney General's subversive list. According to Reuther, a "basic fallacy of the radical right" "He came to the Presidency, did Kennedy, in - a main reason why conservatives are danger an hour of rising extremism and in an hour ous and should be declared subversive - is their when the preachers of hate were spreading their over-emphasis on the dangers of "domestic com gospels of Fascism across the land and because this is a free land they were permitted to speak. munism."(G) Now Kennedy is dead and a piece of America died with him."(3) Concerning the general liberal allegation that Dallas environment somehow caused a commu The Bee uses fascism as a label for constitution nist to murder the President: it is noteworthy that al conservatives. (4) Dallas homes which Lee Harvey Oswald is re Rabbi Meir Lasker, of Temple Judea Congre ported to have visited were homes of liberal in gation in Philadelphia, said: tellectuals. The only meeting that Oswald is known to have attended in Dallas was a meeting "For in our hearts, we know, that we cannot throw the entire guilt upon the head of the young of the American Civil Liberties Union, at South assassin, nor even upon the shoulders of the white ern Methodist University, on the night of Octo council groups - who undoubtedly influenced, ber 25, 1963. The ACLU meeting that night fea by their corrupt standards, this irrational act. tured a film portraying the evil of "right-wing" For in truth we are all somewhat responsible extremism in the State of Washington, where, ...per mitting such conditions to develop - that in a state representative was defeated for lawlessness was bound to raise its ugly head."(5) 1962, re-election because right-wingers disclosed the Note that Rabbi Lasker did not call the Presi fact that the representative's wife had once been dent's murderer a communist. He called him a a member of the communist party.(7) "young assassin." The Rabbi expressed a senti ment that was virtually universal in the pro nouncements of liberals: namely, that the whole Making The Most Of It nation must share the blame for creating an at mosphere which encouraged a maniac to kill.