PARTISAN REVIEW
107
President as an honest, compassionate human being. Only by developing
into an exemplary model , will he be able
to
exercise power effectively, and
attract people into the public life who now feel they would be perma–
nently stained by it. I write two weeks before the Inauguration, when the
only evidence we have with which
to
evaluate Carter's performance are his
campaign and his Cabinet appointments . Neither have proved very prom–
ising , but one must refrain from reading the future on the basis of a few
damp tea leaves.
HANS J. MORGENTHAU
In the most general terms , the new administration faces the problem
of bringing traditional policies , institutions, and procedures into harmony
with the facts of contemporary life. In both domestic and foreign policies
we start from assumptions which are reflections of a reality which existed,
say, a century ago, but has disappeared or at least been drastically changed
in consequence of the social and technological developments of the contem–
porary world .
There exists , then, a gap between our assumptions about the social
world in which we live and the actual nature of that world . If we want
to
escape catastrophe, coming about through abuse of the natural environ–
ment, mismanagement of society, or nuclear war , our government must
eliminate , or at least narrow, that gap .
This seems to me to be the fundamental general task of the new
administration, from which specific policies and procedures must derive .
MAUREEN HOWARD
There is a grave crisis in our democracy: through an institutionalizing
of the poor this country is being robbed of the educated electorate upon
which our democratic system is built. It is
to
the advantage of big business,
big labor, and the military-industrial complex
to
keep the poor semi–
literate and under the spell of mass media. Jimmy Carter is honest in
claiming that he cares about the people . Our best hope lies in the presump–
tion that the kindly and reasonable father figure that appealed
to
many
voters will give full rein
to
Carter, the super-executive and administrator.
We need education and practical social programs , not rhetorical visions. Of
immediate importance, it would seem that the administration must estab–
lish an independence from the tyranny of the Pentagon, for the success of
The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks depend on a position of moral
