AMERICA
35
leon H. Keyserling
1.
Our whole history as a nation and a people shows that it
matters tremendously who is in the White House. The argument that
any given President at any given time is bound to respond in only one
way to the problems confronting him is mistaken, and dangerous in the
extreme. It defies the whole theory of a democracy-which is that the
actions of any President shall be subjected constantly to the watchful
evaluation of an informed people. Such an evaluation would be meaning–
less
if
it were to be assumed that the President had no choices.
Insofar as your question implies that President Johnson should not
act as he is acting
if
he were not "forced" to do so, I do not want my
answer to imply criticism of what the President is now doing. An evalua–
tion of the particular policies of President Johnson is beyond the scope
of my answers to your questions. But those who may disagree with any
part of current policies, after responsible examination of them, should
not be stopped from criticism on the spurious ground that there is no
room for policy choices.
2. The problem of inflation is a real one, but I think that it is being
grossly exaggerated. Far more important than what is happening to prices
is what is happening to real per capita production of goods and services,
whether this growing volume of goods and services is being divided
equitably among our people, and whether a sufficient portion of them is
being allotted through national policies to the great priorities of our
domestic social needs. The exaggerated stress upon the problem of infla–
tion is doubly injurious because, in the name of fighting inflation, we
have actually been adopting policies, such as the rising interest rates poli–
cy, which inflate the fat and starve the lean.
With 34,000,000 Americans now living in poverty, with far less prog–
ress being made toward its reduction than our resources would permit,
and with the programs thus far launched in the war against poverty being
so tragically inadequate, the problem of poverty is by far the greatest single
problem confronting the nation and the people at large.
3. My first comment in response to this question is that the split is
being greatly exaggerated, especially by some leading intellectuals who are
behaving very irresponsibly. Some of them, as indicated by their writings
and their speeches, have been misusing their intellectual capabilities to
magnify every accomplishment and obscure every shortcoming in the
