SPAN: October 1964

.Issue: .

INDIAN HANDICRAFTS .IN THE ti.S •.

CREATIVE AMERI.CA NDHI: THE GREAT DIS.SENTER: .

By Nor~an Thom'as . .

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attention will focus on Japan this month when World the Olympic Games come to Asia for the first time in

recent history. The XVIII Olympiad will bring together top athletes from ninety-six countries competing, from October 10 through 24, in twenty sports at sites scattered throughout the Tokyo area. Some of the leading contenders for American representation at the Games are shown on these pages.

John Thomas of Massachasetts, high jump.

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CONTENTS OCTOBER

1964

VOL UME V

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M~R~ET

FOUR CAMPAIGNS

by Richard Harrity

FOR

,FOR I~DIAN

NUMBER 10

HANDICRAFTS

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TO REMEMBER-

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CREATIVE

NATIONS

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16

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AMERICA

19

The Arts in America . by John F. Kennedy

20

The Creative Process

by James Baldwin NORMAN THOMAS:

by Earl N. Mittleman

AMERICA'S

GREAT

DISSENTER

34

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GANDHI: INDIA'S

by Norman Thomas

GREAT

DISSENTER f/

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THE MAGNIFICENT MISTAKE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS

by V. S. Nanda ROCKETS-;-AND J

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FRONT COVER: Saturn I lifting from its pad at Cape Kennedy, Florida, culminated nearly forty years of effort to produce an efficient liquid fuel rocket capable of placing 37,700 pounds in orbit. For the story see page 44.

BACK COVER: Senator John F. Kennedy campaigns for the Presidency in 1960, one of the most memorable elections in U.S. history. Richard Harrity tells the story in "Four Campaigns to Remember," beginning on page 9.

W.H. WEATHERSBY, Publisher; DEAN BROWN,Editor; V.S. NANDA, Mg. Editor.

EDITORIALSTAFF: Lokenath Bhattacharya, K. G. Gabrani, Avinash Pasricha, Nirmal K. Sharma. ART STAFF: B. Roy Choudhury, Nand K- Katyal.

PHOTOGRAPHICSERVICES:USIS Photo Lab. Production Manager: Awtar S. Marwaha. Published by United States Information Service, Bahawalpur House, Sikandra Road, New Delhi-I, on behalf of The American Embassy, New Delhi. Printed by Arun K. Mehta at Vakil & Sons Private Ltd., Narandas Building, Sprott Road, 18 Ballard Estate, Bombay-I. Pages 9-12, 37-40 printed by offset at G. Claridge & Co., Caxton Works, Frere Road, Bombay-I. Subscription rates for SPAN: One year, Rs. 4; two years, Rs. 7. Address subscriptions, including remittance to nearest regional distributor. NEW DELHI, Patrika Syndicate (Pvt.) Ltd., Gole Market; BOMBAY, Lalvani Brothers, Dr. Dadabhai Naoroji Road; MADRAS, The Swadesamitran Ltd., Victory House, Mount Road; CALCUTTA,Patrika Syndicate (Pvt.) Ltd., 12/1 Lindsay Street. Subscriptions are not accepted from outside India. • Manuscripts and photographs sent for publication must be accompanied by stamped, self-addressed envelope for return. SPAN is not respensible for any loss in transit. SPAN encourages use of its articles in other publications except where copyrighted. For details, write to the editor, SPAN. • In case of change of address, cut out old address from a recent SPAN envelope and forward along with new address to A. K. Mitra, Circulation Manager.

Please allow six weeks for change of address to become effective. •

NEW YORK WORLD'S FAIR OPENS NEW VISTAS FOR INDIA'S HANDICRAFTS.

A SOARING MARKET FOR

sale in New York would be INDlAN nearly exhausted by closing at the day. Now Indian artisans, New York World's scattered throughout the counFair closes its doors on Octotry in cities, towns and villages, ber 18 for 1964, preparations are busy replenishing stocks will have already begun for the for the 1965 Fair. They are 1965season which will open on concentrating on those items April 21. High on the list of that proved most popular this priorities is the manufacture year: jewelled ladies' handand shipment of Indian handibags, scarves, phulkaris, toys crafts, perhaps the single most from Orissa and Mysore, baspopular feature of India's parkets and mooras, agate neckticipation this year. By midlaces, bangles and ear-rings, July, sales of Indian handibrass hanging lamps, lacquered crafts had reached Rs. 6.65 stools and chairs, hand loomed lakhs, with additional whole"bleeding Madras" cotton sale orders of Rs. 30 lakhs cloth, silk dress material, during the same period. And and moderately-priced variebesides the Government-opties of saris. erated sales department at the And beyond 1965 when the pavilion, four private Indian New York World's Fair closes, finns sold handicrafts from officials of the Handicrafts and stalls in the Fair's International Handlooms Exports CorporaPlaza which averaged sales of tion see a vast horizon for the some Rs. 12,500 per day. export of Indian handicrafts.

The items displayed at the "The Fair has been the breakFair (some are shown on these through," one official said pages) represented more than recently, "and while we have ten years of cumulative effort many problems ahead, we by experts on every levelSilk scarves, necklaces, ear-rings, ladies' handbags and host of other Indian products are becoming popular with American women. know there is a fabulous marartisans, designers, merchanket for the products of our dising consultants, manufacturers of raw materials, and scores of others. And acceptance artisans." The statistics underscore official optimism. In 1957, of these items by American buyers proved that Indian handiexport ofIndian handicrafts to the U.S. amounted to some Rs. 56 crafts which are well-made, attractively designed and reasonably lakhs; by the end of this year, it is expected, the annual figure will reach some Rs. 7 crores. Total world-wide exports of handipriced can be an important source of foreign exchange for India.

Officials anticipated that stocks of items for immediate crafts have reached Rs. 29 crores, plus an additional Rs. 13 crores

W

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PAVILION

THE

INDIAN HANDICRAFTS

for a variety of jewellery and apparel from Italy, the United precious stones.

Kingdom and France became With the U.S. market accommonplace, American buycounting for nearly twenty-five ers-always interested in exotic per cent of world demand for items from far-away places Indian handicrafts, the interest -were ready to welcome of Handicrafts and Handlooms Indian goods.

Exports Corporation officials But a decade ago the shadin American buyers is obvious. ows of difficultiesnearly block"The market in the United ed out any hope of success.

States is vast," a member of the "Some difficulties are inherent Handicrafts Board said rein the very nature of handicently. "Deceptively vast. At crafts," an exporter explained. first glance it appears that the "As the name suggests, these only problem is how quickly are items made by hand by we can process the orders. simple artisans. So for us quanEarly in our career of exporttity and quality have always ing to the U.S., however, we been problems. received an order from an "In the past we could not American importer for one rely on craftsmen living in million birds carved from scattered areas, working hapbuffalo horns. It would have hazardly, to deliver goods on been a very profitable orderschedule." Small manufacbut to fill it would require the turers and weavers ran out oJ horns of nearly every buffalo dyes and yarn for their handin India. From this and other loomed fabrics; prices fluctuatexperiences, we learned about ed erratically, both for raw the vastness of the American materials and finished goods; market for our handicrafts." quality of a single item varied At times the problems seemgreatly; delivery schedules This delicately carved hanging brass lamp, a type which is quite popular in U.S. homes, is being considered as an export item. ed insurmountable, even to the could not be maintained. This most optimistic handicraft enwas the position in 1947 when thusiast. There was'an expanding market for foreign goods in India finally gained her independence on August 15. the U.S. The standard of living of Americans was rising nearly When the industrial revolution came to India, handicrafts, every year. As travel became faster and cheaper, the horizon which had, for many centuries, been an integral part of everyof the average American expanded beyond Europe and the day Indian life, were threatened with extinction by the influx Middle East to Asia. As shoes, handbags, scarves and wearing Continued on page 7

These attractively designed toys, figures and dolls were popular items at the Indian pavilion at the New York World's Fair.

Many exquisite Indian handicrafts are finding a favourable market in the U.S., and becoming big earners of foreign exchange for India.

displayed exotic Indian handicrafts. right, at their 1962 "Far Eastern

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handbag was high on list of bestsellers at the Fair.

of cheaply-made, mass-produced factory goods. Thousands of craftsmen were thrown out of their traditional employment.

Many became jobless, while others turned to work in the factories. The surviving handicrafts deteriorated in quality and lost their individuality by imitating foreign designs.

But the new Government of India soon realized both the economic urgency of the situation, and the important role handicrafts played in promoting the nation's cultural heritage.

To many, it seemed a tragic waste not to make full use of the skills and artistry of India's traditional craftsmen in the almost staggering job of nation-building which lay ahead.

An All India Handicrafts Board was established to assist craftsmen by loans, market research and surveys, organized market facilities, co-operatives, and the services of design centres. Foreign experts in merchandising, design, and production-including many American authorities-came to India to help with the planning of a handicrafts programme which would assure the nation of a steady outlet for its products.

Meanwhile, the sale of handicrafts was promoted by frequent country-wide exhibitions, the establishment of State emporia for regional handicrafts, and the organization of special handicrafts weeks. These measures proved successful and gave important impetus to the developing industry. A high priority was given to the revival of traditional handicrafts, and more and more Indians became aware of their own handicraft heritage.

Another important factor in the establishment of a nationwide handicrafts programme was the restriction on imported goods imposed to advance the country's economic development.

Indian housewives became increasingly reliant on Indian goods, including handicrafts and handloom products.

But as domestic needs were being met, the foreign marketespecially the American-loomed as an ever-growing source of desperately needed foreign exchange. This market was approached with caution based on some unfortunate experiences. In the past, cheap Indian-made goods had been exported with nearlydisastrous results for the reputation of Indian products. To avoid a repetition of this experience an early decision was made to establish a standard of high and dependable quality for products which would go abroad as representatives of India.

And to broaden the outlet for Indian handicrafts, a decision was made to seek new uses for traditional products, adapting them to a specific market.

When designers from the Indian Handicrafts Board visited America, they noticed that the scarf, usually made of silk, rayon or fine cotton, is a common head covering for women of all ages and all levels of society. A square shape, usually in vivid colours and imaginative designs, is the most popular style, and it is worn informally during all seasons of the year. Research showed that most American women from teen-agers to grandmothers owned several and that they were common gift items for birthday remembrances, Mother's Day and Christmas.

Back in India,)he designers saw the simple, forceful designs done on paper by village women of Madhubani in Bihar to decorate their homes. The basic style of the paintings is primitive and done in bold, colourful strokes with sharply defined lines.

It was suggested that these designs be made on a printing block, and then carefully transferred to large raw silk squares. The result was a striking and original scarf, thirty-six inches square,

of impressive strength and beauty-and the scarves proved to be one of the most popular items offered for sale at the New York World's Fair.

Marketing advisers from the Handicrafts Board also considered the realities of the American way of life, and discovered that Indian products offered for sale on the American market would have to require a minimum of maintenance. American families do not have servants; in most homes cleaning and polishing of furnishings is done by the housewife, who, with washing and ironing of laundry, preparation of meals, and care of children, has little energy for additional time-consuming and tedious chores. If she buys brass ware, for example, she wants it to remain bright and shiny; she dO'es not have time to polish brass lamps, trays, figures and jars when they become dull and tarnished.

Brassware is a highly popular item in the U.S., however, provided it is carefully lacquered-a requirement that has created problems for Indian brass. Lacquer is in short supply in India and is one problem which is now being attacked to make Indian brassware competitive in the U.S. with well-lacquered brass from other countries.

Continuing study of the ever-changing American market by the Handicrafts Board is helping to broaden the market for Indian products. "Americans continue climbing the income ladder of higher consumption potential," says D. N. Saraf, General Manager of the Handicrafts and Handlooms Exports Corporation. "A larger number of people have surplus spending power, that is, above that needed for the basic necessities of food, clothing and shelter."

Mr. Sarafnotes that there is a strong trend towards increased home life in the U.S.-marriages at an earlier age, larger families, a higher percentage of the population being married, a surging increase in home ownership. "The market for home furnishings, floor covers, furniture, and decorative items for homes is, therefore, expanding rapidly. The desire for possessing the new and different creates a new vista of demand."

While Indian handicraft authorities have been busy evaluating the American market, improving the quality of both handicrafts and hand loom fabrics, establishing showrooms, and making adaptations of traditional arts and skills to modern markets, American merchants are finding new ways to take full advantage of India's increasing flow of exotic products.

One of the first of America's most famous retail stores to take full advantage ofIndian-made goods is Neiman-Marcus, the famed speciality store of Dallas, Texas. Each year the store¡ features a "Fortnight" of items and events from countries around the world. In 1962, Indian fabrics and handicrafts were prominently displayed in the store's "Far Eastern Fortnight," and special exhibits and programmes included performances of Indian dances and music, and displays of Indian art objects.

Newspaper advertising featured Indian motifs in both design and products displayed. Items included women's attache cases covered in fabric from an antique Kashmir shawl; a gold embroidered Rajasthan costume; a cocktail dress fashioned from patterned sari silk; a woman's sleeping gown based on the design of kurta; brass lanterns; ashtrays made of ankle bracelets; a telescoping ceremonial horn and scores of other items. The sales event also Continued on next page

Handicrafts promote and interpret India's arts and culture to the peoples of other lands.

Neiman-Marcus window display featured a wide variety of lndianmade shoes, wooden screens, Indian fabrics and decorative items.

featured Indian food in the store's restaurants, and displays of musical instruments, antiques, and murals-all from India. A highlight of the affair was a three-day course in Indian cooking.

Ambassador B. K. Nehru, India's envoy to the United States, was a special guest at the opening of the "Fortnight."

"We try to get the people of Dallas interested in these products;' Stanley Marcus, owner of Neiman-Marcus, explains, "so they will buy not only during the 'Fortnight,' but will keep their interest in those products and ask for them in the years to come. We are beginning to find that many customers will come back often and inquire about the product of a foreign country which we had shown in a 'Fortnight' some years before."

Some 2,000 miles to the east, another famous store has organized special sales events based on Indian themes and products. "Lord & Taylor Brings You India" has become an annual affair at the famous New York high fashion store on Fifth Avenue. Fashions, either inspired by Indian design or in designs executed in Indian fabrics are featured. Some of America's leading couturiers have designed suits, gowns, dresses and evening coats of Indian fabrics for the event. Cholis become evening blouses when joined by a cummerbund with Rajasthan skirts in handwoven, handblocked cotton, or natural raw silk skirts with Jaipur work. The kurta is adapted for wear at home in a long-sleeved overblou.se worn with Indian-style pajama trousers. Jewellery, men's ties, handbags, scarves and shoes were also featured. One floor of the store contained a special exhibit of antique teak tables, camphor chests, a teak Moghul's chest and a teak bed. The exhibit was entered through a 17th-century carved entrance way, believed to have come from a temple in Northern India.

"Increased travel to Asia," says a Lord & ;;J'aylor executive, "has made all Americans more aware of the beauty and unique craftsmanship of Indian products and of a sophistication of design which could only be achieved by an ancient civilization."

Scores of other retail outlets in the U.S.-large and sma!lare now offering Indian-made products. And officials believe that the volume will continue to rise at unprecedented rates.

Export of handicrafts to the U.S. is especially profitable, officials point out, because American firms pay in dollars for all their purchases of Indian products. When other countries pay for Indian exports out of their rupee holdings, India does not earn any foreign exchange from such exports. On barter arrangements, the situation is even more unfavourable to India, since bartered goods are not available as earners of foreign exchange. U.S.-Indian trade provides India with much-needed. freely convert.ible foreign exchange which India can use anywhere.

But Indian handicrafts are not only valuable earners of foreign exchange. They can be useful interpret.ers of India's arts and culture to peoples of other lands. Udaipur chains in a Connecticut home can open new doors of knowledge. An Indian carpet in a Manhattan apartment brings a little touch of India with it. As Mrs. Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay, Chairman of the All India Handicrafts Board, said in her recent address to the World Congress of Craftsmen in New York: "The frontiers of our sympathy are extended and our human affections deepened by sharing craft creations ....

We gradually grow to the happy realization of a common and universal heritage." â&#x20AC;˘

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THIS MONTH THE 1964 PRESIDENTIAL election campaigns will reach fever pitch in the United States as the candidates for President and Vice President shuttle from coast to coast in .their quest for votes on November 3. The candidates this year are, for the Democrats, President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, and Senator Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota for Vice President; for the Republicans, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona for President, and Representative William Miller of New York for Vice President. By plane, train, car and bus these candidates are criss-crossing the U.S., speaking to â&#x20AC;˘ huge rallies and small groups, in &reat cities and rural areas. TheX will sha:ke thousands of hands, appear on scores of television and radio programmes, and by election eve, they will have travelled nearly 50,000 miles and talked themselves hoarse in their efforts to win the votes of Americans. The Presidential campaign has been a highlight of American political life for some 140 years, and the four campaigns described here offer a sampling of what can be expected as the 1964 campaign reaches its climax.

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HENTHE REpUBLICANPARTYwon the Presidential election of 1860 the United States of America became "a house divided against itself."

The tragic problem of free labour versus slavery had been sharply defined in the off-' year election of 1858, when a little-known lawyer named Abraham Lincoln from Springfield, Illinois, was nominated by the fledgling Republican Party to contest the Senatorial seat of Stephen A. Douglas. Douglas was one of the most important political figures in the United States, and by way of added piquancy, a former suitor for the' hand of Lincoln's wife Mary Todd. Lincoln and Douglas engaged in a series of debates that captured the attention of the country.

Lincoln, speaking at Springfield, had declared: "'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this Government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free .... I do not expect the House to fall; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

Then in the debate at Freeport, Lincoln manoeuvred Douglas into making a statement about t!).e Dred Scott decision by which the Supreme Court had held in effect that once a slave, always a slave. Douglas, speaking to an anti-slavery audience, said, "Slavery cannot exist a day or an hour anywhere, unless it is supported by local police regulations .... Hence no matter what the decision of the Supreme Court may be, the right of the people to make a Slave Territory or a Free Territory is perfect and complete."

This reluctant recognition by Douglas of th~ popular-sovereignty concept won him re-election as the Senator from Illinois, but fatally antagonized the South. In commenting on his own defeat, Lincoln accurately said, "It is a slip and not a falL" The debates wi~h Douglas gained Lincoln a national reputation. Two years later at the Republican Convention he became a contender for the Presidential nomination against several better-known candidates, including Salmon P. Chase, the first Republican Governor of Ohio and William H. . Seward, former Governor of New York.

As Lincoln's campaign managers prepared to make deals with other State delegations, he sent them a telegram: "I authorize no bargains, and will be bound by none."

But Judge David Davis, who had ridden

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the law circuit with Lincoln and was one of his chief supporters, did make a deal with the Pennsylvania delegation. That State agreed to vote for Lincoln provided that Simon Cameron, a Pennsylvanian, would be appoint,ed Secretary of the Treasury if the Republican Party won the election. It was understood that Pennsylvania would not shift its support to Lincoln until after the first ballot.

On the first ballot Seward received 1731 votes against 102 for Lincoln. On the second ballot Pennsylvania came in and Lincoln trailed Seward by only 31 votes. On the third ballot Lincoln took the lead. His victory was assured when David Cartter of the Ohio delegation rose to his feet, and, with a stutter that sustained the suspense, announced that his State was shifting four votes to Lincoln.

Lincoln received the news of his nomination in the offices of the Springfield Journal in a telegram from his friend Knapp: "Abe, we did it. Glory to God." Lincoln looked at the telegram for a moment, then said, "I reckon there is a little short woman down at our house that would like to hear the news."

The Democratic Convention at Charleston, South Carolina, turned into a bitter battleground between the Southern, Northern and Western segments of the party that traced its origin to the man who had written "All men are created equal ... endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights . . . Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Southerners threatened to bolt the Party if the other delegations did not support their stand in support of slavery.

The violent debate over the platform raged for days. When a minority report which favoured the position of the North on slavery was finally adopted, delegates from the Southern States walked out of the Convention.

One pro-slavery supporter uttered this prophecy, " ... Go your way and we will go ours.

But the South leaves not ... friendless and alone, for in sixty days you will find a United South standing shoulder to shoulder."

The disrupted Convention continued, but after fifty-seven ballots, Douglas still could not command a two-thirds majority. The Convention reconvened in Baltimore. There Douglas was finally named standard bearer of the Northern wing of his divided party.

Southern Democrats also met again, and adopted a platform that would protect slavery.

John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky was

1964 by United Newspapers Magazine Corporation.

SPAN

October 1964

picked as their candidate for the Presidency.

Then to complicate the confusion, a fourth party, made up of remnlj.nts of the Whig Party and the anti-foreign-.born KnowNothings, was born. Called the Constitutional Union, it named John Bell of Tennessee as its candidate for the Presidency.

So the Presidential race began with two Democratic candidates, representing the North and the South; a Constitutional Union candidate dedicated to maintaining the status quo; and one Republican.

Lincoln's log-cabin and rail-splitting background were stressed, and his "house divided against itself" beliefs were soft-pedalled by . the Republicans. The Northern Democrats, in a desperate effort to win some Southern support for Douglas, emphasized their candidate's stand, "I do not care whether slavery is voted up or down." The Southern Democrats blasted both Douglas and Lincoln while the Constitutional Union Party meekly preached peace at any price.

Lincoln stayed in Springfield during the entire campaign. Trying not to antagonizt} the South, he did not make a single political speech. Nevertheless, voters from surrounding States poured in to visit him and his supporters in the East formed themselves into groups called the "WIDE-AWAKES."Wearing black enamelled capes and military caps they marched through the streets of Eastern cities.

Douglas, on the other hand, waged an active campaign. Even venturing into the South, he declared that if the Democrats did not win the election the South would surely secede from the Union. He, too, had uniformed supporters. One club in Brooklyn was formed with the avowed purpose of taking care of Lincoln's WIDE-AwAKEs--they named themselves "THE CHLOROFORMERS." At the end of the razzle-dazzle campaign Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes against 1,376,957 for Douglas, 849,781 for Breckinridge and 588,879 for Bell. The lawyer from Springfield was elected sixteenth President of the still United States.

Next day when his friends and neighbours gathered at the Springfield railroad station to wish him Godspeed, Lincoln said, "Today I leave you to assume a task more difficult than that which devolved upon General Washington. Unless the great God who assisted him shall be with and aid me, I must fail. But if the same omniscient mind . . . that directed . . . him shall guide and support me, I shall not fail; I shall succeed."

Two months later, on April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter.

In Washington, Lincoln preached "Malice toward none and charity for all," and at Gettysburg he pledged "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that th'is government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Lincoln never returned to his home in Springfield. But, in the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, "Glory, Glory, Halleluiah, his truth is marching on."

1860 the United States has been torn by two domestic disasters-the Civil War that divided the Union and the Great Depression of the 1930's, a national tragedy with a threat of defeat for the American way of life.

The economic earthquake that first struck the United States in 1929 reached full fury three years later. Ruin or recovery was the vital issue of that Presidential campaign year.

Herbert Hoover, a man of great vision and a humanitarian who had helped feed millions in Europe after World War I, was renominated by the Republican Party.

There were two chief contenders for the Democratic nomination: Alfred E. Smith, who had been defeated by Hoover in 1928; and the man who had twice nominated Smith, in 1924 and 1928, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt won on the fourth ballot when William G. McAdoo declared: "California came here to nominate a President of the United States. She did not come to deadlock the Convention or to engage in another devastating contest like that of 1924. Therefore California casts forty-four votes for FDR." Roosevelt was the first nominee ever to fly to a convention. He announced in Chicago, "You have nominated me and I know it, and I am here to thank you for the honour. Let it be symbolic that in so doing I broke tradition.

Let it be from now on the task of our Party to break foolish traditions."

The Republican platform ran to some 9,000 words but there was little that defined how to defeat the depression. Mr. Hoover delivered ten major addresses during the campaign holdfng to the basic issues, but some of the Republican campaign managers concentrated their attack on Roosevelt as a radical, with suggestions that he was also anti-Catholic. John Nance Gamer, who was the Democratic nominee for Vice President, was ridiculed as a political crackpot. A third target was Roosevelt's health.

Wearing an old felt hat with a Navy cape draped across his shoulders and an uptilted cigarette holder clenched between his teeth, Roosevelt gave proof of his endurance on a gruelling cross-country campaign tour by train, plane and auto.

He was backed up by an expert team that utilized to the fullest every available campaign technique-radio, literature, personal letters and long-distance phone calls from the candidate to local Democratic leaders.

President Hoover was of course the victim INCE

of disastrous circumstances. He had come to power at the height of a great boom, but had falien heir to the' bust following the Wall Street crash.

Four years before Hoover had said, "We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of the land. The poorhouse is vanishing from among us."

Now in 1932 the long bread lines made a mockery of this hopeful forecast.

Hoover actuaUy did have farsighted plans for relieving the misery of the country, many of which were later put into successful operation. But during the heat of the campaign,

EW CANDIDATES have hadso many.cards stacked against them as did Harry S. Truman in 1948. He was President by act of God, not by election. His party had been in power for sixteen years and many people thought it was time for a change. Worse, the party was badly split. Henry Wallace, who had lost the Vice Presidential nomination to Truman in 1944, announced that he was running for President at the head of his own newly created Progressive Party. This was a left-wing group; on the right there was trouble too. Truman's strong stand on civil rights provoked several Southern States to bolt the Democratic Party and form their own "Dixiecrat" Party, with Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as their candidate. Labour was cool to Truman because of his threat to draft the strikers to break a railroad strike.

At the Democratic Convention, one delegate displayed a sign reading, "I am just mild about Harry." Republican Chairman Reece gleefully greeted Truman's candidacy with the quip that it struck the nation "with the terrific impact of a poached egg on a featherbed." And the Democratic New York Post

the growing army of the unemployed wanted immediate action.

Meanwhile, Roosevelt was proclaiming, "I champion the principle that the national government has a duty to see that no citizen shall starve."

Hoover accurately summed up the 1932 Presidential race: "This campaign is more than a contest between two men. It is a contest between two philosophies of government. .. " Roosevelt said: "I pledge you, I pledge myself to a New Deal for the American people ... This is more than a campaign, it is a call to arms."

The American people watched and waited and listened while fear hung darkly over the country. Wherever Roosevelt went he exuded confidence.

Roosevelt carried forty-two States indicating, as William Allen White put it, "a firm desire on the part of the American people to use government as an agency for human welfare."

As years passed, campaign passions sub" sided. Hoover lived on through a lifetime of public service to become our oldest living ex-President since John Adams, respected and revered by the American people. His ninetieth birthday was celebrated on August 10 this year.

announced, "the Party might as well immediately concede the election and save the wear and tear of campaigning."

The Republican candidate was Thomas E. Dewey, who had every reason te feel confident ¡of victory. Fortune magazine predicted: "The prospects of Republican victory are now so overwhelming that an era of what will amount to one party may well impend."

In contrast to the well-filled Republican campaign coffers, the only thing in the Democratic treasury was emptiness. Prominent party members ducked out in droves when asked to assume the post of financial chairman.

Truman would be "forced to wage the loneliest campaign in recent history." When he appeared in Omaha for a speaking engagement in early June, the huge auditorium was only sparsely filled.

Truman doggedly set out on his campaign. As he climbed aboard his campaign car at Union Station, Washington, Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, the Democratic candidate for Vice President, encouraged him: "Mow 'em down!"

"I'm going to give 'em hell!" Truman Continued on next page SPAN

Octobu 1964 11

Truman's tour of U.S. led to surprise victory in 1948. snapped back, and steamed off on the most extensive whistle-stop wing-ding in our political history. Wherever the Truman train stopped" the people listened, laughed and applauded as he ridiculed the Republicans.

Aboard the Dewey campaign train, "Victory Special," the Republican candidate repeatedly emphasized the party theme: A Republican President backed by a Republican Congress alone could bring the country unity.

Truman responded: "We don't believe in the unity of slaves, or the unity of sheep being led to the slaughter. We don't believe in unity under the rule of big business ... " In a poll of fifty political pundits everyone prophesied that Truman would lose. Railroads even threatened to sidetrack Truman's campaign train unless the Democratic Party paid its transportation bills, and he was sometimes cut off the air in mid-sentence due to insufficient funds to buy additional radio time.

Hardly anybody conceded him a chanceexcept Harry S. Truman.

Meanwhile, the supremely self-assured Republican candidate was saying, "On January 20 we will enter upon a new era. We propose to install in Washington an administration which has faith in the American people and a warm understanding of their needs."

Shortly afterwards, at Beaucoup, Illinois, Dewey's campaign train suddenly backed up, dangerously missing a crowd. Discovering there was no one injured, Dewey sought to calm the crowd. "That's the first lunatic I've had for an engineer," he said jokingly.

"He probably should be shot at sunrise, but we'll let him off this time since no one was hurt."

Dewey's remarks, widely quoted, hurt him with the railroad workers and labour generally.

Truman covered over 31,700 miles, and delivered 356 speeches to fifteen million people, but everybody agreed he was a loser.

The New York Times prophesied the Republican candidate would receive 345 electoral votes. Drew Pearson wrote about "the closely knit group around Tom Dewey who will take over the White House eighty-six days from now;" and Life featured a full-page picture of Dewey in its November 1 issue, captioned, "The next President travels by ferry boat over San Francisco Bay." When on Election Day night the returns started coming in, they didn't seem quite to jibe with the forecasts. A Truman aide called the President with had news: Dewey had carried New York State. Truman merely said, "Don't call me any more. I'm going to bed. . ." When he woke up he had won the election.

When the President reached the White House, his old buddy George Allen quipped, "I was supremely confident of your defeat."

Truman grinned and replied, "So was everybody else. But you're the first one who's admitted it."

FINISH like the last Presidential race the deciding factors of victory or defeat are as mysterious as a miracle and as difficult to define as a dream. Some sixty-eight million Americans participated, and the difference in popular vote was a tiny 116,550, about seventeen hundredths of one per cent.

The chorus of "ifs" must echo in the ear and the might-have-beens must harry the mind of the candidate who came so close and yet lost.

Would the result of 1960 have been different if Richard Nixon had made a better impression in that fateful first telecast of his debates with John F. Kennedy? Nixon knew the country and the problems it faced at home and abroad. Vigorous, vital, experienced, he knew how to conduct himself and how to run a successful campaign. One of the most knowledgeable men ever to seek public office, Vice President during eight history-making years, he had no reason to fear debate, yet he seemed unsure of himself.

The smallest detail of that evening might have made the difference. If Nixon's make-up had been better, his collar a neater fit, he might have crossed that narrow line into the land of the winner. Maybe if Vice Presidential candidate Henry Cabot Lodge had not telephoned him just before the debate, reportedly warning him to avoid "the image of an assassin," Nixon would have been a bit more forceful, more in command. Maybe the chance fact that Nixon banged his knee just before the telecast cost him the election.

For the millions who voted for Richard Nixon that first television debate remains a haunting "if."

To his credit, Nixon wanted to be his own man and conduct his campaign in his own way. Would it have changed the final result if he had sought President Eisenhower's help earlier? Ike was tremendously popular, Ike was liked, and in two Presidential elections he had rolled up a record number of votes for the Republican Party and its candidates. If he had been called in a month earlier, could he have won a different decision from the phantom judges? That too is a question that will be debated down through the decades to explain a defeat which came so close to victory.

John F. Kennedy had a hard road to travel on his way to the White House. He could have come a cropper at anyone of several hurdles.

N A PHOTO

First of all, his faith seemed to be against him.

Only one other Catholic had been nominated to run, Alfred E. Smith, and his defeat for the Presidency in 1928 was heavily weighted by bigotry. Even the professional politicos who belonged to Kennedy's faith were opposed to him feeling that both he and they would be licked before the race was even run.

How did Kennedy circumvent this attitude and win the nomination? Was it through bypassing the bosses and concentrating on the primaries, which he believed were "put in for a purpose, to give the people a voice ... ?"

When asked just how he proposed to defeat Nixon, Kennedy had replied, "In the debates."

Had he accurately sized up his adversary when they first debated as Congressmen, had he detected his strengths and weaknesses and evolved a plan to defeat him? Be that as it may, Kennedy was perfectly prepared.

Both men were young in years, rich in experience, intelligent and personable, yet one made a greater impression on the viewers.

Again the tantalizing. question presents itself: Was this the crossroads where one lane led ¡to defeat and the other to success?

How did Kennedy overcome the unfair handicap of his faith? Was it through the candid statement he made for Look magazine for an article about Catholic candidates in 1960? It could have been the speech on Church and State that he delivered to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association in Texas.in which he affirmed: "Finally, I believe in an America where religious intolerance will some day end, where all men and all churches are treated as equal, where every man has the same right to atten.d the church of his choice,where there is no Catholic vote, no antiCatholic vote, no bloc voting of any .kind."

Was it that-or was it his campaign call to get America "moving again"? Did voters long to share the vision of a "new frontier" that only he could see? Or was it simply what the old starmakers of Hollywood called "chemistry" that made 116,550 marginal voters decide for Kennedy instead of Nixon?

Probabilities, guesses and hindsight aside, John Fitzgerald Kennedy did become the 35th President of the United States of America and at his inauguration sounded his memorable call for a new national effort: "Ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country." It was an ideal which tragically outlived its author .â&#x20AC;˘

A day with U Thant at the United Nations The Secretary-General's duties are many and arduous) calling for great reserves of energy) tact and patience.

HEN U THANTWASAPPOINTED Secretary-General of the United Nations in November 1961, the late President Kennedy commented: "As he begins one of the world's most difficult jobs, he has our confidence and our prayers."

The difficulties of the Secretary-General's position cannot indeed be over-emphasized. As top executive of the world organization whose foremost function is to preserve peace and settle all international disputes by discussion and negotiation, he must have infinite patience and tact and the ability to inspire confidence. The nature of his duties keeps him constantly in the vortex of controversy and conflict, and it is important that in the midst of all the excitement he should preserve his emotional equilibrium.

Continued on next page

W

The Secretary-General's working day combines ~3- J:J.4-S

A General Assembly debate in progress: Left to right: U Thant, 1963 President Dr. Carlos So-so-Rodriguez and C. V. Narasimhan.

Flanked by U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson and Under-Secretary Dr. Ralphe Bundle, U Thant discusses the problem of the Congo.

c.

U Thant says: "1 have been trained in the Buddhist tradition of concentration and meditation to seek a certain detachment."

A devout Buddhist, the fifty-five-year old Burmese diplomat has established a high reputation for efficiency and integrity and has won the confidence of not only the two power blocs in the U.N. but of the many unaligned and smaller nations.

His association with the United Nations began in 1957 when he was selected to represent his country on the world body. He impressed his fellow-diplomats with his high skill in negotiations, his moderation of views and his ability to reconcile antagonistic opinions. It was doubtless these qualities and his not inconsiderable experience in economic and political affairs,

which led to his appointment as Secretary-General.

U Thant's working day of ten to twelve hours, which he begins with a prayer, is crowded with activity as illustrated on these pages. Apart from formal meetings and discussions, he usually has informal engagements with U.N. delegates which provide the opportunity for much valuable work "behind the scenes." Sometimes, of course, he is able to delegate his administrative and other duties to his assistants. His chief aide is C. v.

Narasimhan, of India, who was a member of the Indian Civil Service for some twenty years before joining the service of the United Nations in 1956. Narasimhan is Under-Secretary for General Assembly Affairs, and in this capacity has undertaken a number of missions in Asia and Africa, including the handling of U.N. operations in the Congo. â&#x20AC;˘

V. Narasimhan, Under-Secretary for General Assembly, is also U Thant's chief aide and has undertaken important missions.

adm inistrattve routzne with attendance at debates) group discusszons and informal meetings.

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(3 - t:<.S-o

Even at informal parties U.N. business must go on. U Thant and Narasimhan discuss a problem with a delegate and his wi/e.

After a long day of meetings and debates, the evening is a convenient time for attending to files and clearing the desk.

Listening at a meeting of the Assembly's General (Steering) Committee, one of the many such meetings U Thant must convene.

Leaving his offices in the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, Ambassador Stevenson steps Ollt briskly to attend sessions in the U.N. chambers across the street.

THAT what is happening, day by day, at the United Nations is just about the most challenging, the most original, even the most exhilarating work being done by men today."

Thus Adlai E. Stevenson characterizes the peace-keeping mission of the United Nations to which he is the chief United States representative.

His 1961 appointment to the position signalled the United States' new desire to strengthen the United Nations as an instrument for keeping the peace. Announcing the naming of Mr. Stevenson, President John F. Kennedy said, "I believe that increased emphasis will be given to the work in New York (the U.N. headquarters) and that the whole field of foreign policy will be affected by the judgment, energy and responsibility of the U.S. representative at this vital mission."

Mr. Stevenson's relationship with the United Nations is not new. In 1945, he was an adviser to the U.S. delegation to the San Francisco convention which wrote the U.N. Charter. Returning to the field of domestic politics, he served one term as Governor of Illinois, and was nominated by the Democratic Party for the U.S. Presidency in 1952 and again in 1956.

Since February, 1961, he has represented his country in the General Assembly, to which all member-nations belong, and in the smaller Security Council, which meets whenever international peace is threatened. On important occasions, he also appears before specialized U.N. bodies.

Mr. Stevenson has been involved in every international crisis brought before the United Nations in the last three and a half years. These include the ill-concealed Soviet design to, destroy the power of the Secretary-General by replacing him with a three-man "troika," the drama surrounding the Congo's effort for independence, and the attempt of the Soviet Union to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, which Stevenson called "a classic example of United Nations performance in the manner contemplated by the Charter." On that occasion, he displayed photographs of the Cuban missile bases before the Security Council, focused public attention on the facts and helped negotiate, through the Secretary-General, for the removal of the nuclear threat.

Debate in the U.N.'s public forums is only part of Mr. Stevenson's job. "There Continued on page 18

I

BELIEVE

on 'a Mi"ssion¡ .of,'

Two of his aides at the U.N. report to Mr. Stevenson shortly before a Security Council meeting commences.

At a meeting with his staff Mr. Stevenson is surrounded by members of the U.S. delegation to the 18th session of the U.N. General Assembly .

Peac'e

Between his many engagements, Mr. Stevenson must find time to keep himself informed.

PS~3

7°/6

He replies 10 newsmen's questions at WashingIon after conferring with Presidenl Johnson.

64 -

are 112 other nations in the U.N. and 1 have to talk with representatives of almost all of them," he said recently. "There is no problem on which the U.S. can take the position that we're not involved. In my own day-to-day life, it's very much the way it was when I was campaigning for President; it's campaigning perpetually."

"Campaigning" at the United Nations is a matter of quiet diplomacy-listening, informing, persuading-rather than emotional speechmaking, which Mr. Stevenson deplores. In a single day, Mr. Stevenson may meet privately with ambassadors from four or five nations, discuss a current crisis with U.N. Secretary-General U Thant, preside at a Security Council meeting, have lunch with a distinguished foreign statesman and dine with another leader.

Mr. Stevenson also must find time to confer by telephone with Washington officials, study proposals offered by other member-nations and write his own speeches.

When asked how he felt about this demanding schedule, Mr. Stevenson answered: "It's something like asking the man burning at the stake how he feels. I'm having so much trouble putting out the fire, I haven't had a chance to think about it."

What he thinks about his mission is revealed in his most recent book, Looking Outward. In the preface he writes: "Surely the most rewarding task of civilized man today is that of reconciling different points of view, of accommodating national positions, of producing a consensus from a workable design for a meeting of minds-for looking not at each other but in the same direction ....

"Each peaceful gesture, each little thing, each humble effort at pacification, accomplished at any level, brings peace closer.

"The journey of a thousand leagues begins with a single step. We must never neglect any work of peace that is within our reach, however smal!." â&#x20AC;˘

3.

8'1.-

Often an impromptu conversation with another delegate in a U.N. corridor gives Mr. Stevenson a chance to clarify a U.S. position.

,.

1 ..

70,7

ÂŤThe arts," wrote tlie late President Kennedy,

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incar-

nate the creativity of a free society." This I5-page section picturing the creative spirit in its full circle from inspiration to fruition is an adaptation from Creative America, published by the Ridge Press.

Creative All1erica

AFTERNOON in the fateful ye~r of 1941, the President of the Uni ted States had two callers. The first was Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador, who had just flown in from London to give Franklin D. Roosevelt an eyewitness account of the bombing of London. The second was Francis H. Taylor, museum director and authority on the history of art.

Taylor waited for two hours while the President and Lothian talked. When he finally entered, he found the President "white as a sheet." Yet the President, we are told, kept Taylor in his office that afternoon for another hour and a half. Turning from a grim preoccupation with the war, Franklin Roosevelt talked about the arts in American life. He spoke of plans for broadening the appreciation of art, and looked forward to a day when "every schoolhouse would have contemporary American paintings hanging on its walls."

George Biddle, the distinguished American artist who records this meeting, adds on his own: "Roosevelt had little discrimination in his taste in painting and sculpture. But he had a more clear understanding of what art could mean in the life of a community-for the soul of a nation-than any man I have known."

In the same year of 1941,Roosevelt himself recalled another President who also found time in the midst of great national trials to concern himself with artistic endeavours. It was in the third year of the Civil War-as Roosevelt told the story in a speech dedicating the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.-and men and"women had gathered to see the Capitol dome completed and the bronze goddess of liberty set upon the top. "It had been an expensive and laborious business," Roosevelt said, "diverting labour and money from the prosecution of the war, and certain critics ... found much to criticize.

There were new marble pillars in the Senate wing of the Capitol; there was a bronze door for the central portion and other such expenditures and embellishments. But the President of the United States-whose name was Lincoln-when he heard these criticisms, answered: 'If people see the Capitol going on, it is a sign that we intend this Union shall go on.' " Both Roosevelt and Lincoln understood that the life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of a nation, is very close to the centre of a nation's purposeand is a test of the quality of a nation's civilization.

Looking at the American scene, I am impressed by its

THE ARTS IN AMERICA ONE

diversity and vitality-by the myriad ways in which Americans find enlightenment, exercise, entertainment, and fulfilment.

Everyone, young and old, seems to be busy. Our roads and seashores are crowded; the great parks draw visitors in unprecedented numbers. Sports thrive, and even such formerly humdrum activities as buying groceries for the family take on a holiday aspect in the new shopping centres. In the midst of all this activity, it is only natural that people should be more active in pursuit of the arts.

The statistics are gratifying: Books have become a billiondollar business; more money is spent each year in going to concerts than to baseball games; our galleries and museums are crowded; community theatres and community symphony orchestras have spread across the land; there are an estimated thirty-three million Americans who play musical instruments.

And all this expresses, I believe, something more than merely the avidity with which goods of all kinds are being acquired in our exuberant society. A need within contemporary civilization, a hunger for certain values and satisfactions, appears to be urging us all to explore and appreciate areas of life which in the past we have sometimes neglected in the United States.

Too often in the past, we have thought of the artist as an idler and dilettante and of the lover of arts as somehow sissy or effete. We have done both an injustice. The life of the artist is, in relation to his work, stem and lonely. He has laboured hard, often amid deprivation, to perfect his skill. He has turned aside from quick success in order to strip his vision of everything secondary or cheapening. His working life is marked by intense application and intense discipline. As for the lover of arts, it is he who, by subjecting himself to the sometimes disturbing experience of art, sustains the artist-and seeks only the reward that his life will, in consequence, be the more fully lived.

Today we recognize increasingly the essentiality of artistic achievement. This is part, I think, of a nation-wide movement towards excellence-a movement which had its start in the admiration of expertness and skill in our technical society, but which now demands quality in all realms of human achievement.

It is part, too, of a feeling that art is the great unifying and humanizing experience. We know that science, for example, is indispensable-but we also know that science, if divorced from a knowledge of man and of man's ways, can stunt a civilization.

And so the educated man-and very often the man who has had the best scientific education-reaches out for the experience which the arts alone provide. He wants to explore the side of life which expresses the emotions and embodies values and ideals of beauty.

Yet this fact surely imposes an obligation on those who

acclaim the freedom of their own society-an obligation to accord the arts attention and respect and status, so that what freedom makes possible, a free society will make necessary.

A nation's government can expect to play only an indirect and marginal role in the arts. Government's essential jobthe organization and administration of great affairs-is too gross and unwieldy for the management of individual genius.

But this does not mean that government is not, or should not be, concerned with the arts. A free government is the reflection of a people's will and desire-and ultimately of their taste. It is also, at its best, a leading force, an example, and teacher. I would like to see everything government does in the course of its activities marked by high quality. I would like to see the works of government represent the best our artists, designers, and builders can achieve. I want to make sure that policies of government do not indirectly or unnecessarily put barriers in the way of the full expression of America's creative genius.

The arts in the United States are, like so many other of our activities, varied and decentralized to a high degree. Private benefactors, foundations, schools and colleges, business corporations, the local community, the city, and the State combine in widely differing proportions to organize and support the institutions of culture. I would hope that in the years ahead, as our cultural life develops and takes on new forms, the Federal Government would be prepared to play its proper role in encouraging cultural activities throughout the nation.

To work for the progress of the arts in America is exciting and fruitful because what we are dealing with touches virtually all the citizens.

There will always be of necessity, in any society, a mere handful of genuinely creative individuals, the men and women who shape in words or images the enduring work of art. Among us, even this group tends to be enlarged. "I hear America singing," said Walt Whitman. He would certainly hear it singing with many voices if he were alive today.

Outside the group of active participants stands the great audience. Perhaps no country has ever had so many people so eager to share a delight in the arts. Individuals of all trades and professions, of all ages, in all parts of the country, wait for the curtain to rise-wait for the door that leads to new enjoyments to open.

This wonderful equality in the cultural world is an old American phenomenon. Alexis de Tocqueville, in the 1830's, described how on the remotest frontier, in a wilderness that seemed "the asylum of all miseries," Americans preserved an interest in cultural and intellectual matters. "You penetrate paths scarcely cleared," said Tocqueville; "you perceive, finally, a cleared field, a cabin . . . with a tiny window." You might think, he continues, that you have come at last to the home of an American peasant. But you would be wrong. "The man wears the same clothes as you; he speaks the language of the cities.

On his rude table are books and newspapers."

The cabin with its tiny window has vanished. Yet we might expect to find its counterparts today in homes which would seem quite as remote from the arts. The suburban housewife harassed by the care of her children, the husband weary after the day's work, young people bent on a good time-these might not appear in a mood to enjoy intellectual or artistic pursuit.

Still on the table lie paper-bound reprints of the best books of the ages. By the phonograph is a shelf of recordings of the classics of music. On the wall hang reproductions of the masterpieces of art.

To further the appreciation of culture among all the people, to increase respect for the creative individual, to widen participation by all the processes and fulfilments of art-this is one of the fascinating challenges of these days. â&#x20AC;˘

Sources of inspiration

Sources of inspiration

Looking into his own soul. novelist James Baldwin has illuminated the contemporary world with the clarity of an artist's vision.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS ERHAPS THE PRIMARY distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone. That all men are when the chips are down, alone, is a banality-a banality because it is very frequently stated, but very rarely, on the evidence, believed. Most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge which can

P

paralyse all action in this world. There are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed: and none of these things can be done alone. But the conquest of the physical world is not man's only duty. He is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. The role of the artist, then, precisely, is to illuminate tha~ darkness, blaze roads through that vast forest; so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place.

The state of being alone is not meant to bring to mind merely a rustic musing beside some sylvan lake. The aloneness of which I speak is much -more like the aloneness of birth or death. It is like the fearful aloneness which one sees in the eyes of someone who is suffering, whom we cannot help. Or it is like the aloneness of love, that force and mystery which so many have extolled and so many have cursed, but which no one has ever understood or ever really been able to control. I put the matter this way, not out of any desire to create pity for the artist-God forbid!-but to suggest how nearly, after all, is his state the state of everyone, and in an attempt to make vivid his endeavour. The states of birth, suffering, love, and death, are extreme states: extreme, universal, and inescapable. We all know this, but we would rather not know it. The artist is present to correct the delusions to which we fall prey in our attempts to avoid this knowledge.

It is for this reason that all societies have battled with that incorrigible disturber of the peace-the artist. I doubt that future societies will get on with him any better. The entire purpose of society is to create a bulwark against the inner and the outer chaos, literally, in order to make life bearable and to keep the human race alive. And it is absolutely inevitable that when a tradition has been evolved, whatever the tradition is, that the people, in general, will suppose it to have existed from .before the beginning of time and will be most unwilling and indeed unable to conceive of any changes in it. They do not know how they will live without those traditions which have given them their identity. Their reaction, when it is suggested that they can or that they must, is panic. And we see this panic, I think, everywhere in the world today, from the streets of some of our own southern cities to grisly battlegrounds abroad. And a higher level of consciousness among the people is the only hope we have, now or in the future, of minimizing the human damage.

The artist is distinguished from all the other responsible actors in society-the politicians, legislators, educators, scientists, et cetera-by the fact that he is his own test tube, his own laboratory, working according to very rigorous rules, however unstated these may be, and cannot allow any consideration to supersede his responsibility to reveal all that he can possibly discover concerning the mystery of the human being. Society must accept some things as real; but he must always know that the visible reality hides a deeper one, and that all our action and all our achievement rests on things unseen. A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under heaven. One cannot possibly build a school, teach a child, or drive a car without taking some things for granted. The artist cannot and must not take anything for granted, but must drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.

I seem to be making extremely grandiloquent claims for a breed of men and women historically despised while living and acclaimed when safely dead. But, in a way, the belated honour which all societies tender their artists proves the reality of the point I am trying to make. I am really trying to make clear the nature of the artist's responsibility to his society. The peculiar nature of this responsibility is that he must never cease warring with it, for its sake and for his own. For the truth, in spite of

appearances and all our hopes, is that everything is always changing and the measure of our maturity as nations and as men is how well prepared we are to meet these changes and, further, to use them for our health.

Now, anyone who has e.ver been compelled to think about it-anyone, for example, who has ever been in love-knows t.hat the one face which one can never see is one's own face. One's lover-or one's brother, or one's enemy-sees the face you wear, and this face can elicit the most extraordinary reactions.

We do the things we do, and feel what we feel, essentially because we must-we are responsible for our actions, but we rarely understand them. It goes without saying, I believe, that if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less.

But the barrier between oneself and one's knowledge of oneself is high indeed. There are so many things one would rather not know! We become social creatures because we cannot live any other way. But in order to become social, there are a great many other things which we must not become, and we are frightened, all of us, of those forces within us which perpetually menace our precarious security. Yet, the forces are there, we cannot will them away. All we can do is learn to live with them. And we cannot learn this unless we are willing to tell the truth about ourselves, and the truth about us is always at variance with what we wish to be. The human effort is to bring these two realities into a relationship resembling reconciliation. The human beings whom we respect the most, after all-and sometimes fear the most-are those who are most deeply involved in this delicate and strenuous effort: for they have the unshakable authority which comes only from having looked on and endured and survived the worst. That nation is healthiest which has the least necessity to distrust or ostracize or victimize these peoplewhom, as I say, we honour, once they are gone, because, somewhere in our hearts, we know that we cannot live without them.

The dangers of being an American artist are not greater than those of being an artist anywhere else in the world, but they are very particular. These dangers are produced by our history. They rest on the fact that in order to conquer this continent, the particular aloneness of which I speak-the aloneness in which one discovers that life is tragic, and, therefore, therefore, unutterably beautiful-could not be permitted. And that this prohibition is typical of all emergent nations will be proven, I have no doubt, in many ways during the next fifty years. This continent now is conquered, but our habits and o'ur fears remain.

And, in the same way that to become a social human being one modifies and suppresses and, ultimately, without great courage, lies to oneself about all one's interior, uncharted chaos, so have we, as a nation, modified and suppressed and lied about all the darker forces in our history. We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it, is immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self. This is also true of nations. We know how a person, in such a paralysis, is unable to assess either his weaknesses or his strengths, and how frequently indeed he mistakes the one for the other. And this, I think, we do. We are the strongest nation in the Western world, but this is not for the reasons that we think. It is because we have an opportunity which no other nation has of moving beyond the Old World concepts of race and class and caste, and create, finally, what we must have had in mind when we first began speaking of the New World. But the price for this is a long look backward whence we came and an unflinching assessment of the record. For an artist, the record of that journey is most clearly revealed in the personalities of the people the journey produced. Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is, to reveal the beloved to himself, and with that revelation, make freedom real. â&#x20AC;˘

Artists Work Alone 5111-4-1ILtY-v Violinist Isaac Stern. travelling virtuoso: "I feel a little bit sorry for people who have never known the joy of making music ....

One should convey the ecstasy and exaltation of using the instrument to make music rather than using music just to play the instrument."

5N-4-8'

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Painter wftlem De Kooning, unofficial dean of abstract expressionists: "I'm not trying to be a virtuoso. but I have to do it fast. It's not like poker, where you can build to a straight flush.

It's like throwing dice: I can't save anything,"

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14 >~

Sculptor Ernesto Gonzalez Jerez, Cuban-born artist. now working in New England: "When I discovered the acetylene torch I knew this meant I would have to throwaway all I had learned and start again. I am still pioneering.

The road is very long."

Poet Marianne Moore, fond of celebrating the everyday wonders of animals and baseball: "If you can't catch the attention at the start and hold it, there's no use going on, whether it¡s biography, drama or verse. I'm very careful with my first lines."

Artists Work Alone Painter Richard Diebenkorn portrays man in lonely landscapes: "It is the opposition and interrelation of environment and the figure ... I find that this 'person' I deal with creates a surrounding which in turn modifies, changes, sometimes even engulfs him."

Playwright Arthur Miller writes of events that test men's souls: "There are two kinds of plays. One is the play that tells what you know and the other reflects the search and the struggle for what you know. I try to write the second kind."

Cartoonist Saul Steinberg deals in allegory: ''The crocodile is society, the museum, the ministry ... anything that wanders endlessly without heart or purpose. I travel by crocodile and eventually try to make it into a good monster."

Artists Work Alone Movie director John Huston, whose straightforward purpose has made him master of his craft: "I look on making pictures as play.

To me, it's fun. I just proceed on the theory that if I'm fascinated by something there are a lot of people like me."

Sculptor Alexander Calder, the creator of mobiles: "I think I am a realist, because I make what I see.

It's only the problem of seeing it. . . . If you can imagine a thing, conjure it up in space-then you can make it, and tout de suite you're a realist."

.~~Reader in Central Park

The learners , young and old

Father, son, and painting by Jackson Pollock CREATIVE

AMERICA

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The learners, young and old

Norman \Ihoma2Jwas the Socialist Party candidate for U.S. President six times-and was defeated six times. But reforms he urged were later adopted by the two major parties and are now part of the American society. "An inveterate loser," said one newspaper, "he has been among the most influential individuals in American politics."

NORMAN THOMAS: AMERICA'S GREAT DISSENTER ORMAN THOMAS,the outstanding American Socialist of the past twenty-five years, has sometimes been called "a successful failure." The seeming contradiction stems from some unique aspects of a remarkable political career.

He was very clearly a failure in his efforts to win high public office. He ran for President six times, as nominee of the Socialist Party, and six times met overwhelming defeat.

Yet he was higWy successful in winning public respect, and some thoughtful observers go further.

Quite apart fr0!TI his personal integrity, his impeccable character and his eloquence as a public speaker, which all Americans concede, some admirers say he has been successful as a political force. They contend he has been a truly influential figure who played an important part in bringing about much of the social progress that came to the United States during his active career.

How can this be said of a man who never won an election, who never cast a vote in any legislative chamber, who was supported by about one per cent of the voters, on the average, in his six campaigns for the Presidency?

The answer, if there is an answer to this seeming riddle,

N

ABOUTTHEAUTHOR:A former teacher of political science at New York University, Dr. Mittleman was Executive Secretary, Union for Democratic Socialism and an associate of Norman Thomas.

is to be found in the realm of ideas. Norman Thomas was always a man of ideas, a thinker, and a provocative public speaker. His admirers sincerely believe he had a potent effect on the course of recent American history through the manner in which he could influence the thinking and policies of political leaders in other parties.

The argument which pictures Thomas as a successful man, despite his electrical defeats, usually starts with his first campaign for the Presidency in 1928. He then called for a programme of old-age pensions and unemployment insurance, to be financed by increased taxes on corporations, inheritance levies, and taxes on large individual incomes. He urged a shorter working dilY, and fewer working hours per week. Increased productivity of labour, he urged, should lead to "a rest period of no less than two days in each week" for every worker. He urged a Federal programme of "flood control, flood relief, irrigation, and reclamation." He favoured stronger trade unions and an efficient system of collective bargaining between trade unions and management.

By 1948, the last year he ran for President, all of these measures had become part of American life. Ergo, say the more fervid admirers of Norman Thomas, he was an instrumental leader in bringing about twentieth century progress in the United States. In 1948, Thomas himself facetiously Continued on page 36

complained that the Democrats and Republicans had been "stealing from my socialist principles."

Even the Washington Post, an influential and progressive newspaper but never a follower of doctrinaire socialism, accepted the essentials of this view in a birthday tribute on November 20, 1959, when Thomas reached the age of seventy-five. An editorial in the Post on that occasion said in part: "As an inveterate loser, he has been among the most influential individuals in twentieth century American politics.

His ideas have received from his rivals the supreme compliment of plagiarism and from the American people the accolade of acceptance."

Many Americans would say this was only the overlygenerous praise which friends might accord to any fine, honourable, respected gentleman of seventy-five on his birthday. They might argue that these reforms and progressive innovations would have come anyway, with or without Thomas, in a country which has generally moved forward towards a better life for its people. They would point out that social progress in the U.S. did not begin with Thomas, nor end after the 1948 election.

They would cite civil service reform as early as 1883-before Thomas was born; Theodore Roosevelt's successful efforts to curb the power of giant corporations when Thomas was still a boy; the graduated income tax, eight-hour working day, and many other reforms introduced by Woodrow Wilson when Thomas was a young Presbyterian clergyman; and a strong current of reform which brought government closer to the people, eased the lot of workers, and brought other liberal changes in the early years of this century. Perhaps most strongly of all, many would dispute any interpretation of Thomas's career which they felt would minimize the credit due to Franklin Roosevelt.

The extent, the power, the degree of Thomas's influence is, then, open to debate, but few would deny that his impact was considerable. While Americans have seen no reason to depart from the country's long-standing two-party system, most historians agree with a comment on lesser political movements which came from Thomas in 1959.

"Crusading third parties, vigorous dissenters, have been characteristic of our history," the Socialist leader then wrote.

"None of them has ever come to power. ... Nevertheless, the appearance of active third parties has been not only a barometer of unrest and dissent, but itself a positive pressure for political and economic change."

Norman Thomas was born in 1884 in Marion, Ohio, the oldest of six children of a Presbyterian minister. He had an uneventful smalltown boyhood. He attended the public schools and helped support himself through his teen-age high school years by delivering the local newspaper.

The summer after he was graduated from high school the family moved to Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Thomas attended Bucknell University in Lewisburg for a year, but wanted to go to college away from home. The next year his dream came true when a wealthy uncle gave him $400 to attend Princeton University in New Jersey.

Working to provide about half his expenses, Thomas was a happy and conventional undergraduate at Princeton. He was graduated in 1905 and after a trip around the world he attended Union Theological Seminary in New York. In 1911 he was

graduated from the seminary and was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church.

As the minister of a church in a slum neighbourhood in New York, Thomas began to think seriously about social problems. His duties at the church involved social work among the poor. He began to believe that a change in the economic system was the way to deal with their difficulties. But he did not become a socialist overnight. His conversion was slow.

In 1912 he supported the Progressive Party of former President Theodore Roosevelt and in 1916 he voted for Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat.

Thomas began his association with socialists when the United States entered World War I, which American socialists opposed. His opposition to the war was based on pacifist idealism. He became involved in Socialist Party activities and in 1918 resigned as pastor of the church and joined the Socialist Party.

In the years after World War I, Thomas became more active in the Socialist Party as a lecturer and an unsuccessful candidate for public office. In the years from 1924 to 1927 he ran for governor of the State of New York, mayor of New York City, New York State senator and New York City councilman.

In 1928 he made his first try for the Presidency.

As a democratic socialist Thomas has always been an outspoken opponent of communism. In June, 1962, the communists suggested united action between themselves and the Socialists. Thomas rejected their appeal. "We cannot accept the Communist Party's description of itself as 'fighters for peace and democracy,' " he stated. "Communists have never stood for democracy or civil liberties in any nation where they have achieved power. ... We have seen no evidence that the American Communist Party has abandoned its subservience to Russian leadership, adopted elementary principles of democracy, orhas criticized denial of democratic principles by communists in power."

Thomas's blueprint for society closely follows the concepts of the welfare state which have been accepted by many countries in the non-communist world. He insists on the "necessity of planning ... to provide the good life for all. In such planning, the state must playa commanding part, but as the servant of man, democratically controlled, with fostering concern for civil liberties."

The Socialist leader is not, however, a believer in total governmental control of the country's economic life. "The stateshould never be the exclusive owner of the economic apparatus," he wrote. "There must be room for cooperatives ... and ... for considerable private ownership. Free labor unions will continue to be essential in representing the peculiar interests of workers."

Thomas rejects completely the communist concepts of dictatorship. "Socialism," Thomas stated, "must be presented as a fulfilment of democracy rather than a victory of the 'proletariat' in a class struggle."

Thomas summed up his principles of political life as arb American dissenter and democratic Socialist when he wrote:"I am indeed proud and happy to live in a country where theright to dissent is embodied in basic law. It is a right essential to any concept of the dignity and freedom of the individual; it is essential to the search for truth in a world wherein noauthority is infallible." â&#x20AC;˘

As a dissenter himself, Norman Thomas has long been a student of the great dissenters of history. In his recent book, The Great Dissenters) he includes Socrates, Galileo, Thomas Paine, Wendell Phillips and Mahatma Gandhi. To commemorate Gandhiji's birth anniversary this month, the chapter on the Father of the Indian Nation is condensed on these pages.

GANDHI: INDIA'S GREAT DISSENTER HE MORE 1 reflect upon the course of events and Gandhi's tactics, the more I am amazed by his combination of boldness and caution, of defiance of British authorities with personal courtesy and even friendliness in dealing with them.

One cannot look back on the record and find in it an infallibility to which Gandhi would be the last to pretend. It must be taken as a whole. As such it is a record of an astute politician, a great leader of men, little concerned with his own power, not afraid of the compromises inevitable in co-operative action, but never compromising his profound dissent from the political theory that political society is essentially amoral if not immoral, and that the success of a good cause may be achieved by means which contravene its goodness.

Early in 1922, as Gandhi informed the Viceroy, Lord Reading, he was ready to try specific organized civil disobedience. But apparently only experimentally at first, in the rural district of Bardoli. Before the campaign was well under way, however, he suspended it because he had received news

This article is reprinted with permission from The Great Dissenters, published by W. W. Norton & Co., Inc. Š 1961 by Norman Thomas.

of mob excesses in another part of India.

Against criticism of some of his associates, for the time being he cancelled defiance of the government. This drastic reversal of his programple, he assured his party, might be "politicallY unsound and unwise, but there is no doubt that it is religiously sound."

That for him, was the ultimate test.

Nevertheless, Lord Reading, after months of hesitation, ordered Gandhi's arrest for sedition, specifically because of his articles in Young India. The arrest took place on March 22, 1922.

Gandhi pleaded guilty. He explained to the court that he denounced British policy rather than individual men. He asked for the severest penalty.

Mr. Justice Broomfield imposed a six-year sentence after a remarkable recognition of Gandhi as "a man of high ideals and noble and even saintly life."

Oh January 12, 1924, Gandhi was taken from prison to a hospital in Poona where he was operated upon for appendicitis.

The operation was successful but there was a local abscess and complete recovery was slow. The British Government therefore released Gandhi.

It was not until February 12, 1928, that he

renewed satyagraha in Bardoli. This time civil disobedience in Bardoli was organized and maintained without violence. The government arrested hundreds of peasants. Month followed month; support for Bardoli began to develop in England; Gandhi refused to call for sympathetic civil disobedience "until Bardoli had completely proved its mettle." At last, on August 2, the government capitulated.

During these months India was in turmoil.

Gandhi faced a growing demand for independence, not self-rule within the empire. Congress talked war. Gandhi not only rejected war but thought Congress itself unproved. But if by December 1929 India had not achieved dominion status, Gandhi said, "I must declare myself an Independence-walla."

With the passing of this date, ended Gandhi's patient work in his own party for home rule. "Swaraj," he declared, "is now to mean compl~te independence." He now was under obligation to find a way to press satyagraha as the way to independence, minimizing to the utmost the chance of violence.

The way he chose was the famous march to the sea, which he himself led. It was preceded by a formal-and unanswerable-letter to the Viceroy explaining why Indians must press Continued on next page

Dandi March to break the Salt Laws was great, effective drama. their just cause. "Whilst, therefore, I hold the British rule to be a curse, I do not intend harm to a single Englishman or to any legitimate interest he may have in India."

On March 12, Gandhi and seventy-eight men and women from his Ashram began the march. He marched less than twelve miles a day with little luggage. The peasants thronged to see him and spread flowers in his path.

Several times each day he would halt the march long enough for him and others to exhort the people to wear khadi, abandon child marriage, abjure alcohol and drugs, keep clean, live purely, and-but only when the signal came-break the Salt Laws.

By the time they reached the sea at Dandi, the marchers numbered several thousand. On the morning of April 6, Gandhi dipped into the water, returned to the beach, and picked up some salt deposited by the waves. Mrs. Sarojini Naidu cried, "Hail, Deliverer!" Civil disobedience had begun.

Given the Indian setting, Gandhi's march

and his act in breaking the government salt monopoly was great and effective drama.

Gandhi then personally withdrew from the immediate scene but a mighty civil disobedience movement sprang up. India was in angry but non-violent revolt. Estimates of prisoners ran from sixty to one hundred thousand, but Gandhi was untouched. On the night of May 4, however, he was arrested at his camp near Dandi and imprisoned indefinitely without trial or sentence.

In accordance with Gandhi's plans before his arrest, Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, the poet, led 2,500 volunteers to raid the well-guarded salt pans of the Dharasana Salt Works. The advance party, completely unarmed, led by Gandhi's son, Manilal, went steadily on until they, and a second party after them, were beaten back by police. Mrs. Naidu and Manilal were arrested. , fter much negotiation, on March 5, 1931, a truce was signed; prisoners were released and civil disobedience called off. The Congress elected Gandhiji sole representative to the Second Round Table Conference in London.

In London almost everyone who was anyone-except Churchill-wanted to see Gandhi. He went to the palace to have tea with the King and Queen wearing a shawl over his usual abbreviated costume. Negotiations went badly. Gandhi, under direction of

the Congress, now said that independence must include complete control "over finance, defence and external affairs." What he wanted was a commonwealth relationship singularly like that granted in 1947. Everywhere he made friends and it was with the people, not at the conference table, that he felt his greatest work was done.

Back in India, Gandhi was royally greeted.

But he found that in India itself the situation was very bad. Jawaharlal Nehru and Tasadduq Sherwani had been arrested en route to greet him. In Britain Ramsay MacDonald now presided over a predominantly Conservative government. Gandhi informed the Viceroy (now Lord Willingdon) that he might have to start civil disobedience. On January 4, 1932, he who had been His Majesty's guest in Buckingham Palace only a few weeks before, was again his guest in Yeravada Jail.

A new crisis came in September 1932.

Gandhi dismayed his friends and all India by announcing a fast unto death. The reason was that Gandhi had learned from newspapers that the new constitution which the British were granting or imposing on India would require not only separate representation for Hindus and Moslems as formerly-that Gandhi thought bad enough-but also for the depressed classes, who had been Gandhi's chief concern. He felt that this would "vivisect and disrupt Hinduism."

To fast unto death on this issue was one of Gandhi's decisions which I can least understand. It was not politically justified.

Nehru was troubled by it. But it did bring home to Hindus the consequences to their beloved Mahatma of their old unbrotherly divisions.

While Gandhi fasted, many temples were opened to Harijans-the once untouchables.

Prominent Hindus ate for the first time with untouchables and, what maÂĽ have been more important, many villages' allowed untouchables to use their wells. Untouchability wasn't ended; it still exists contrary to law in India. But it lost the seal of outspoken religious and social approval. hile Indians prayed and anxiously waited, their leaders negotiated with Gandhi as he lay on his prison cot. After complicated manoeuvring, a pact which was approved in London was arrived at between Gandhi and the able Dr. Ambedkar, leader of the Harijans, under which the Harijans, while not technically segregated from the Hindus, were given a generous allotment of "reserved seats." It was a temporary compromise in a bad situation and politically, the difference between what Gandhi rejected and later accepted did not justify his fast, yet its effect on the Indian attitude towards the untouchables was most impressive.

For a time Gandhi dropped direct political pressure but worked incessantly for reforms in Indian life. His faith in class collaboration and perhaps his hopes of voluntary abdication by a landlord or industrialist faded and, he dwelt more on problems of riches and poverty, and looked with more favour on decentralized village control of power plants. He thought that in a free India the peasants would take the land. His ideal society would have no extremes of wealth or poverty. But he was at once too much of a pragmatist, knowing the necessity of compromise, and too much of a saint, believing that real reform must come from within, to work out an economic and political plan for a free India. He concentrated politically on the independence of a united India in which Hindus and Moslems would live and work together in peace.

The earlier years of the Second World War saw Indian patriots tom between different points of view. Some thought the Indians should take advantage of British reverses and strike now. This Gandhi opposed. -He wrote in his Harijan. "We do not seek our independence out of England's ruin. That is not the way of non-violence." On the other hand, many of the most importa..~t Congress leaders would have supported the war if they were assured of independence. They-and Gandhi, too-were deeply offended that the Viceroy had declared war and put Indian troops in it without even consulting the central legislature.

Gandhi himself felt that India ought not to join the war under any circumstances. To him Indian independence was a moral right and must prevail without using the war to bargain for it. But he did not want to use his extraordinary personal power to impose on Congress a view many of his closest friends

and associates did not share.

In this situation, the British helped to hold the Congress Party together. Winston Churchill's often quoted assertion that "I have not become the King's first minister to preside at the liquidation of the British Empire" reflected the spirit of the Government.

The Congress Working Committee and Gandhi approved of individual satyagraha.

Vinoba Bhave-Iater to become leader of the Land Gift movement-was saluted by Gandhi as the first civil resister; Pandit Nehru, the second, and V. Patel, the third. They protested Britain's dragging India into the war. They were all arrested.

This particular phase of the struggle ended in December 1941 with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and America's entry into the war. The months that followed were marked. by the arrival of the mission headed

by Sir Stafford Cripps, outstanding Labour Party leader. He brought government proposals for much greater Indian participation in and influence on the war effort. They promised dominion status after the war with a right of withdrawal from the British Commonwealth. But the offer went so far in protecting the rights of native states and provinces which might not like the Indian union that to Gandhi it amounted to encouragement of vivisection. The majority of other leaders also¡ found the plan unsatisfactory.

In July 1942 the Working Committee of Congress drew up a resolution reaffirming its demand for an immediate end of British rule but offering to "making India a willing partner in a joint enterprise" and "agreeable to the stationing of the armed forces of the allies in India." Refusal of independence would mean civil disobedience under Gandhi.

The Indian Viceroy's reaction was silence with no atjempt at negotiation. Then, on the night of August 8-9, 1942, the police awoke all the leaders of the Conference in session in Bombay and hustled them to jail. Gandhi they lodged in a palace of the Aga Khan at Yeravada, near Poona.

This action, anticipating a beginning of organized mass civil disobedience, prevented it. With the leaders in jail, resort to violence of many sorts was general. Nor did the imprisoned Gandhi try to stop what he said was the fault of the British; he protested many things, including special privileges in transportation and accommodation for himself.

He informed the Viceroy that he would begin a twenty-one-day fast on February 9, which was not, he explained, political blackmail but "an appeal to the Highest Tribunal for justice which I have failed to secure from you." he government refused to free Gandhi unconditionally but saw to it that he could fast under conditions most likely to save his life. (Imagine Hitler or Stalin doing as much!)

Gandhi survived the fast. But before many months his wife, who was in prison with him, died. The government extended every consideration to the Gandhi family. His beloved helper, Mahadev Desai, had died there earlier.

Both losses were very severe. Gandhi himself became ill. He was, therefore, released on

May 8, 1944, never to be jailed again. He had spent 249 days in South African and 2,089 days in Indian jails.

It was by now apparent that the unity and possibly even the independence of India might depend upon the attitude of the Moslems.

Hence Gandhi approached Jinnah, who was the most outstanding leader of the Moslem League. He preached the doctrine of two nations. Gandhi offered self-determination, by which in a free India Moslem areas might decide to secede but on condition that the two nations keep unified administration of foreign affairs, defence, internal communications, customs, commerce and the like.

Jinnah wanted assurances of more absolute separation. He held to this position and, at the conference which Wavell set up in Simla in June 1945, Jinnah wrecked any agreement.

Then the War ended, and British Labour came to power. Even if the Conservatives had won, and Churchill had remained in power, it is doubtful that Britain could or would have held India. The country was too restive and Britain too exhausted to afford the tremendous cost of holding her. It would have been an imperial effort without profit. Moreover, there was a conscience in Britain on the side of national freedom.

Nevertheless, I cannot imagine that Churchill could have handled the British liquidation of empire beginning in India as the Labour government handled it. Attlee and his government have by no means received the credit due them for their part in the peaceful liquidation of empire. ut with the best will in the world, the problem of establishing a free India was not easy. There was the problem of the native states-their ultimate disappearance proved surprisingly easy; there was the problem of the Hindu-Moslem division-and eventually that caused deeper tragedy than any Indian . nationalist would have anticipated in 1945.

The British proposed a somewhat complex federal plan, recognizing Moslem majorities in certain areas, to be implemented by a constituent assembly. During the process a provisional government should be set up. Gandhi didn't like the plan but did not press his objections. He was now unwilling to use civil disobedience since the British had come so far and he mistrusted the mood of the Indian Left which for its part had an ingrained distrust of the British. So the Mahatma had no real alternative to the plan. Finally Congress accepted the plan. The Moslem League also reluctantly accepted it as the best they could get from the British.

On August 12, 1946, the Viceroy invited Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to form an interim government, to which Nehru agreed. He went to Jinnah and offered him a choice of places for representatives of the Moslem League.

Jinnah refused; but, later on, at Wavell's insistence, appointed four Moslem leaders and one anti-Gandhi untouchable. They never regarded themselves as part of a co-operating coalition; they sabotaged the government of which they were a part. Still worse, on August Continued on next page

Ironically) the great advocate of non-vi07ence died by violence.

16, proclaimed by Jinnah as Direct Action Day, terrible riots broke out. in Calcutta.

Somewhat later, rioting broke out in rura,l districts of Noakhali and Tippera in East Bengal. Gandhi was particularly perturbed because the villages had hitherto been free from communal strife. He determined to go to Bengal. And go he did, despite pleas of his friends to stay near the capital and care for his own health, which was not good.

But while Gandhi was still in Calcutta, in the neighbouring province of Bihar, agitators swept the people into hysteria. Once more, he himself, as penance, would live on the lowest diet possible which he would turn into a fast unto death "if the erring Biharis have not turned over a new leaf." The provisional government took a stern line; Nehru and others begged Gandhi not to fast; conditions quieted in Bihar and Gandhi went to relatively inaccessible but well populated Noakhali to pitch his camp. Gandhi scattered his friends in villages and he himself in his pilgrimage lived in forty-nine villages, walking between them in bare feet and asking 'one villager or another, usually a Moslem, to receive him. Thus in the seventy-eighth year of his age, he lived from November 7, 1946 to March 2, 1947.

Meanwhile independence, but independence with partition, came nearer and nearer.

Jin,nah's obduracy was complete. The upper class Moslems were with him, although the peasants increasingly welcomed the Mahatma on his pilgrimage. But Gandhi could not be everywhere, and riots broke out in scattered areas.

Lord Mountbatten had come to India as Viceroy. Although he desired unity, he was convinced, on his many travels, that India would have to be partitioned. After discussion with Indian leaders, he went to London to report, got Cabinet acceptance of partition under his plan, came back, and got the approval of the Working Committee of Congress.

In this process, Gandhi, although opposed to the p~rtition, felt that he had to throw his weight in favour (jf what the Working Committee had decided. He declared, "If only non-Moslem India were with me, I could show the way to undo the proposed partition.

Many have invited me to head the opposition.

But there is nothing in common between them and me except opposition. Can love and hate combine?"

Under Lord Mountbatten's efficient direction, partition was rapidly carried out. On August 15, 1947 India was divided into two states. The atmy and civil service were divided; even many of India's pacifists wanted an army.

Gandhi took little part in setting up the details of government. He could not participate in the celebration of independence: "I deceived 40

SPAN

October 1964

myself," he said, "into the belief that the people were wedded to non-violence." But he persisted in his effort to persuade people to his way of thought. He did not let the tragedy which overshadowed victory silence his voice in advocating what was good.

Greater sorrow was to come. Acceptance of partition did not allay communal strife.

There were millions of Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan and more millions of Moslems in India. The new states, Pakistan and India, were swept by riots which displaced ten to twelve million people and caused large numbers to die by violence and hunger. No fear of retaliation which both sides practised restrained either.

In these awful weeks Gandhi, the spiritually undefeated, rose to his greatest heights. On August 9, five days before independence with partition, Gandhi went to keep peace in Calcutta, which had been the scene of shameful violence. When sporadic acts of violence continued in the city in spite of his presence there, he announced that he would begin a fast "to end only it' and when sanity returns to Calcutta." On September 4, officials reported that the tumultuous city had been absolutely quiet for twenty-four hour~, and that night the city leaders brought him the written pledge he demanded that there would be no more communal rioting in Calcutta. hree days later he was strong 'enough to leave for New Delhi en route to the Punjab.

He made his headquarters in the home of the wealthy industrialist, G. D. Birla. In the grounds, at some distance, he held his prayer meetings. The untouchable area in which Gandhi formerly stayed was crowded with Hindu refugees from the Pakistani part of the Punjab. Towards Delhi streamed Hindu and Sikh refugees from Moslem fury in Pakistan and Moslems escapipg similar Hindu rage on their long pilgrimage to Pakistan.

In my youth one could not have imagined the horror and violence attending this movement of millions. But now two world wars and their aftermath have made it unnecessary to describe what before could hardly be imagined. Gandhi went everywhere. He organized relief. He constructively criticized the new government. He was more concerned with the crimes of his own people than of the Moslems-this was one of the marks of the greatness of his spirit.

Gandhi wanted to go to Pakistan to help the Hindus and Sikhs but felt that he could not until Moslems were as safe in Delhi as he himself. He felt helpless. Then there came to him "in a flash" a decision to fast unto death.

He had exhausted other means. "God had sent me the fast." It was a fast directed to the conscience of all, Hindus, Moslems and Sikhs on both sides of the new boundaries.

Azad, in India Wins Freedom, gives a moving account of the fast and the attitude of government, civic leaders and the people to it. On the third day 50,000 people gathered at a meeting. To them Azad was able to¡ bring six conditions covering HinduMoslem relations which, if accepted, would lead Gandhi to break his fast. Azad repeated

them to the vast crowd. With one voice the people pledged themselves to carry out the conditions; thousands signed a pledge to that effect.

Gandhi recommenced his prayer meetings the first day after the fast. The second day a bomb was thrown at him from a nearby garden wall. It missed him. An illiterate old woman grappled with the bomb thrower.

He was arrested. Gandhi told the worshippers on the following day that they should pity the young man. He, Madan Lal, by name, was a Hindu refugee, dispossessed of a shelter in a Moslem mosque when it was returned to the Moslems under the agreement with Gandhi. He had joined a small group who plotted to kill Gandhi. ne of them, Nathuram Vinayak Godse, editor of a Hindu Mahasabha weekly in Poona, learning of Lal's failure, came to Delhi looking for an opportunity to assassinate Gandhi. On January 30, Gandhi was a little late in arriving at the prayer ground. Godse was in the front row of the congregation, holding a small pistol in his pocket.

Later he testified that he had no personal hatred of Gandhi but only of his too great fraternity with Moslems. "Before I fired the shots, I actually wished him well and bowed to him in reverence." Gandhi thus greeted

by Godse and the worshippers, touched his palms together, smiled and blessed them.

Godse fired, Gandhi fell, murmuring, "Oh, God." Thus there died by violence the greatest advocate of non-violence in history, slain by the hand of one of those to whom satyagraha had brought freedom from foreign rule but not from the tyranny of bigoted religious hate in his own heart.

In this century of monstrous violence, it was and is our extraordinary good fortune that Gandhi lived. From a virtually unanimous acceptance of Machiavellian practical politics, from the notion of a necessarily amoral, if not immoral, society, be was the great dissenter. At a time when violence is being armed with weapons of annihilation, he showed us that there may be a way of non-violent resistance to evil, a way of enormous power.

Devotion to it gave him no infallibility of judgment, assured him of no complete and final triumph of right. Satyagraha brought only partial victory to India; it bowed before ancient bigotries and hates and men's immemorial addiction to violence as supreme arbiter in their quarrels.

Yet Gandhi's quiet voice still speaks amidst the violent passions of our times. In America neither Martin Luther King and his associates in Montgomery, Alabama, nor later the Negro students who were compelled to develop some form of direct action against racial discrimination, were at first directly inspired by Gandhian exampJe; but in the development of their movement, they have consciously turned to him and his methods rather than to the violence and sabotage which have so often marked direct action against an unjust social order. If ever men achieve a world of peace, to no single man will it owe a greater debt than to Mohandas K. Gandhi. â&#x20AC;˘

The search of Columbus for a western sea route to the Indies) which led to the discovery of the New World) was as great and heroic an adventure in its day as the flights of the first aviators or man)s present bid for conquest of space. The anniversary of the discovery of America falls on October 12 and will be celebrated throughout America and Latin America. The account which follows is based largely on Samuel Eliot Morison) s monumental work Admiral of the Ocean Sea, which was awarded a Pulitzer prize.

The magnificent mistake of Christopher Columbus

HE ILLUSION OF Christopher Columbus that he had reached India by a new sea route while in fact he had landed on a small island in the Bahamas group, proved to be one of history's most significant-and glorious-mistakes.

As he stepped ashore on this island on the morning of October 12, 1492, he hailed the simple, nearly nude natives as "Indians," a label borne to this day by the original inhabitants of the Western hemisphere.

Although Columbus did not achieve his objective of finding a way to the Orient by sailing to the West, he discovered instead a New World. And this discovery was to affect profoundly the social and political history of the entire world.

Born in Genoa in 1451, Christopher Columbus was the son of a wool-weaver. As a dreamy little boy, he was more attracted by the sea and sailing ships than by the looms in his father's workshop. He appears to have made several early voyages in the Mediterranean and at twenty-five when he was a seaman in an armed convoy for a valuable Genoese cargo, he became involved in a battle with ships of the French fleet. His vessel was destroyed and he was wounded, but he managed to swim across a distance of some six miles to the Portuguese coast.

This incident was a turning point in Columbus's career.

Lisbon was then fast growing into a thriving centre of maritime trade and enterprise and he joined his younger brother in the business of chart-making and selling. These charts of the world were prepared from information or sketches supplied by captains of Portuguese ships who were then pioneering new trade routes. The Portuguese crown encouraged such pioneering voyages and hoped that one of its adventurous sea captains would find a route to the Indies around Africa.

The lure of the Indies-the term meant not only India but China, Japan and in fact most of Eastern Asia-was strong in the fifteenth century, and an intrepid mariner like Columbus must have found it irresistible. The accounts of travellers, especially Marco Polo, had greatly stimulated interest in the Orient. In the popular imagination the Indies were the enchanted lands of gold and golden palaces, rich spices and perfumes, rare blossoms and sunshine. There was a growing demand in Europe for Oriental textiles, silks, spices and drugs. But as no direct sea route had yet been found, these products were carried by caravans by the long and arduous overland route to a port on the Mediterranean and thence shipped to other European cities.

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This method of transport and trading was not only slow and dangerous; it was also costly since the goods passed through the hands of several middlemen.

To the romantic urge for discovery of a sea route to the fabulous Far East was thus added another strong motive, that of economic and commercial gain. And in the case of Christopher Columbus there was also the inspiration of his religious zeal.

He believed that he had a divine mission to carry Christianity to remote regions and to peoples who had not heard of Christ.

To equip himself better for the great adventure on which he had set his heart, Columbus enrolled as a seaman on a Portuguese trading vessel which took him to a point north of Iceland. Later he also made one or two voyages to the Gold Coast. To his experience as a sailor he added the knowledge acquired by an assiduous study of books on geography and cosmography and the ability to make charts and figure latitude.

In the meantime his marriage with Dona Felipa, who belonged to one of the noblest families of Portugal, had improved his social connections and status.

While, however, the King of Portugal might have been willing to entrust Columbus with a royal caravel or ship to explore the African coast, he was not impressed with his project of reaching the Indies by sailing west. After the death of his wife in 1485, Columbus therefore decided to try his luck in Spain.

Through the good offices of a Franciscan friar, he obtained an introduction to a Spanish grandee who referred his project to Queen Isabella. But another six years of pleading and bargaining, during which he appears to have negotiated also with the ru lers of England and France and suffered many disappointments, were to elapse before the Spanish King and Queen agreed to' sponsor his expedition.

At length a contract was signed between Columbus and tht: Spanish Sovereigns by which the Sovereigns undertook to provide and equip three caravels for the voyage and conferred on Columbus the title of "Admiral of the Ocean Sea, Viceroy and Governor of lands that he may discover." They agreed to let him have a one-tenth share in all gold, gems, spices or other produce obtained by trade within the new territories he might discover. They also furnished him with a letter of introduction to the Grand Khan or Chinese Emperor and two letters for other princes with the addresses left blank.

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contributed largely to its success. The journey to the Canaries By the Queen's orders, two of the caravels, named Nina and Pinta, were supplied by the citizens of Palos, where it was .- took less than a week, but repairs to Pinta, which had broken a decided to fit the expedition. The third, Santa Maria, was rudder, resulted in the fleet being delayed for three weeks at chartered by Columbus as his own flagship. Of the three, Santa the islands. Columbus was impatient at the delay although, Maria was the largest, with a cargo capacity of about 100 tons. according to some accounts, it provided the opportunity for a Besides provisions, drinking water and an assortment of trifles, romantic interlude. He is reported to have fallen in love with intended for barter, the sailing ships carried some crude artillery.

Dona Beatriz, the beautiful ruler of Gomera (oneoftheCanaries).

The total number of officers and crew on the three ships The call of the Indies proved stronger than the call of seems to have been ninety. There were two unusual and interestromance. Taking extra supplies of food and water, Columbus ing appointments in Columbus's fleet, those of a comptroller resumed the voyage on September 6. Soon the last glimpse of and an interpreter. The comptroller was expected to keep a note land in the old world faded in the distance and the ships were on the uncharted ocean, on their way to the unknown. of all expenditure and to ensure that the crown got its share of At the end of the fifteenth century man's knowledge of gold and other valuables. The interpreter was taken because he happened to know Hebrew and a little Arabic, and geography was inaccurate and navigation methods were comparatively primitive. There was considerable misapprehension it was thought that his knowledge of these languages might prove useful in conversations with the Grand Khan and about the size of the earth. Columbus reckoned that a degree other Oriental princes! of longitude was 45 miles long, thus underestimating the size All preparations completed, the little fleet set sail on the of the globe by twenty-five per cent. He also assumed that he morning of August 3, 1492. Our almost exclusive source of would have to sail west from the Canaries through 68 degrees information of its epoch-making voyage is the journal which of longitude only before reaching Japan. These two errors Columbus maintained. He wrote in the preamble: "I thought together resulted in his reckoning the distance as 2,400 nautical to write down upon this voyage in great detail from day to day miles or about one-fifth of the actual figure! A gross miscalall that I should do and see, and encounter, as hereinafter shall culation indeed but, except for it, Columbus's great project oe!feen." The promise was faithfully kept, and the journal might conceivably never have been undertaken. is one of history's most detailed and absorbingly interestThe navigational aids available to Columbus consisted ing travelogues. mainly of the standard mariner's compass with the magnetized To avoid the fierce winds and turbulent currents of the needle, a wooden quadrant, a collection of sea charts and the North Atlantic which had discouraged previous attempts at ampolleta or half-hour glass. Like other mariners, he relied exploration of the great ocean, Columbus decided to first steer almost entirely on dead-reckoning, that is, plotting the course south towards the Canary Islands off the coast of Mrica, before and position on a chart after taking into account the three turning westwards. According to his calculations, the Canaries elements of direction, time and distance. He checked the speed were in the same latitude as the Indies and therefore the most of his ship by the simple process of watching the bubbles or the suitable point of departure for his intended destination. sea-weed as they floated by the vessel. And, with no surer The plan was simple and well-conceived, and good fortune measure, it is not surprising that he overestimated the speed and

Columbus)s journal is one of history)s most detailed and highly interesting travelogues. the distance covered by the Santa Maria by about nine per cent.

As is well known, Columbus maintained two records of the distance, one genuine according to his calculations and the other fictitious and showing a reduced mileage so that his crew.would not complain of being too far away from home. But owing to his overestimate of speed, his faked record was in fact more accurate.

In any case the stratagem did not prove very helpful in allaying the fears of the crew and, when no land had been sighted for three weeks, they became increasingly restive and anxious to return to Spain.

Although the sailors were on the verge of mutiny, Columbus's own faith in his mission appears to have remained unshaken. On October 10, the journal records: "Here the people could stand it no longer, complained of the long voyage; but the Admiral cheered them ... and added that it was useless to complain since he had come to go to the Indies, and so had to continue until he found them, with the help of Our Lord." At any rate, Columbus persuaded them to sail on at least for three days longer; if at the end of that period no land was found, the Admiral promised to turn back.

Destiny ordained glorious fulfilment of Columbus's promise. On October 11 there were many signs of the nearness of land and, all complaints hushed, the mariners tensely awaited the end of this first Atlantic crossing since the fabulous voyages of ancient Northmen. Shortly after 2 a.m. on October 12, the sailor who was looking out from Pinta's forecastle shouted "Tierra! Tierra!" (Land! Land!). Columbus reckoned that ¡Iand was about six miles distant and with a view to a safe landing on the sandcliff shore, he ordered sail to be shortened and the fleet to drift until morning.

The land which these intrepid adventurers had at last reached was a little island of the Bahamas group called Guanahani by the natives. Making full sail at da~n, Columbus found a place for landing on the west coast at about mid-day. Going ashore with the royal standard of Spain displayed, he took possession of the island on behalf of the Spanish Sovereigns.

This is how the ceremonial of naming the island is described by a historian: "And, all having rendered thanks to Our Lord, kneeling on the ground, embracing it with tears of joy for the immeasurable mercy of having reached it, the Admiral rose Saviour. and gave the island the name San Salvador"-Holy The solemn ceremonial was watched by a group of natives who, at first frightened by the sight of the sea monsters in the shape of sailing ships, soon got over their fear and welcomed their visitors as "men from heaven." This first contact between the vanguard of the European settlers of America and the native inhabitants of the New World was perhaps one of the most unusual and dramatic meetings in history. These Indians, as Columbus mistakenly called them, were Tainos, a branch of the Arawak language group. They cultivated corn and made cassava bread, knew how to spin and weave, made pottery and Jived in thatched wooden huts. They went about almost naked and seemed childishly simple and guileless, willing to share all they had with the visitors. When Columbus's account of the strange land of lush verdure and the strange people he had found, was printed and widely distributed, it seemed to the intellectuals of Europe that he had travelled backwards through the corridors of history to the Golden Age of mankind.

Columbus was convinced that Guanahani was an island of the Indies and, after spending two days there he continued his

quest for gold, for Cathay and its Great Khan. Above all he was anxious to find gold, the main objective of his voyage. But although, during a three-month cruise of the Caribbean islands, the sailors saw the first tobacco and the first maize seen by any European, they did not come across any gold other than the occasional nose-ring or similar trinket worn by the natives.

Columbus collected a few of these trinkets and artifacts to make a showing for the Spanish King and Queen, but it was not until his fourth and last voyage in 1502that he was able to locate gold mines in Veragua near the east coast of Panama.

On Christmas Eve, 1492, Columbus's ship Santa Maria ran aground on the northern coast of Hispaniola. The ship had to be abandoned and, on their first Christmas morning in the New World the crew were busy salvaging cargo and equipment from the sinking vessel. Although Columbus had not intended to found a settlement on this voyage, the shipwreck and the difficulty of accommodating all the crew on Nina-Pinta having already sailed eastwards-impelled him to do so. The men themselves were also anxious to stay behind and collect the gold trinkets which the natives were willing to barter for such trifles as glass beads and hawks' bells, especially the latter which completely fascinated them!

A site was, therefore, selected on the beach, for a fortress which Columbus named La Navidad. It was built of planks and timber from Santa Maria and stocked with provisions salvaged from the ship. Thirty-nine men were left behind in this first, ill-fated European settlement in the New World which was attacked and burnt, and all the men killed, by the Tainos after the departure of Columbus. The Admiral had of course no foreboding of such a disaster when, Pinta having unexpectedly joined Nina in the meantime, he decided to begin the homeward voyage on January 16, 1493. As souvenirs of his memorable expedition, he took with him half-a-dozen of the Taino Indians besides some gold artifacts and specimens of herbs and spices.

The hazards of the return voyage proved to be tremendous and called forth all of Columbus's skill as a navigator. Fearful cyclones and stormy seas threatened the two caravels and on the morning of February 14 they lost sight of each other, not to meet again until their arrival in Spain. But at last, surviving all storms and troubles, the vessels were in Palos harbour and the great adventure was over. At Barcelona "all the court and the city" came out to welcome Columbus as he marched in procession with his officers and the Indians in their native finery of paints and feathers, wearing bizarre ornaments of fishbone-andgold and carrying parrots in cages. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella rose to greet their distinguished subject, saw his unique exhibits and asked him many questions before everyone adjourn- . ed to the chapel to render thanks to the Almighty who had brought such success and glory to Columbus and to Spain.

This was the moment of Columbus's greatest triumph and happiness. He made a further three voyages to the New World, the last in 1502-1504, and his fortunes continually rose and ebbed till his death in 1506 at the age of fifty-five. Believing to the end of his days that he had found the western route to the Indies from Europe, he was hardly conscious of the true significance of his great discovery. What would be his thoughts, one wonders, on seeing modern America, now no more than a few hours' flight from the India he could not reach and linked to it not only physically but with close ties of common ideology and friendship? â&#x20AC;˘

On March 16, 1926, Dr. Robert Goddard posed with the first succes:,ful liquid fuel rocket (above). forerunner 0/ Saturn / (righl), a /90-/001 giant capable o/placing 37,000 pounds in earth orbit-the 1V0rld'smost powerful rocket.

ROCKETS and how they grew

Three Saturn first stage rockets are assembled at 1I1arshallSpace Flight Centre in Alahama. This first stage' contains eight e'ngines.

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N 1919, DR. ROBERTH. GODDARD,a professor at Clark University in Massachusetts, sent a 69-page manuscript to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., in which he reported on his investigations in the field of rocketry. Entitled, "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes," the paper received wide publicity because of a short paragraph on the possibility of shooting a rocket to the moon.

Goddard had concluded that a liquid fuel rocket would overcome some of the difficulties encountered with pellets of powder which he had used to power his early rockets. For the next six years he worked to perfect his ideas, and by 1926 he was ready for a test flight. On March 16, the world's first liquid fuel rocket was launched.

The flight was not spectacular; it covered a distance of only 184 feet. But it proved that the liquid fuel rocket would perform as predicted.

Goddard's theories of rocketry have been proved hundreds of times since that first liquid fuel-powered flight in 1926, and perhaps most spectacularly on May 28 this year, when Saturn I was launched from Complex 37 at Cape Kennedy, Florida, the largest rocket ever launched.

The May flight was the sixth Saturn to be launchedall successfully. The first four, however, had only one booster operating and carried water in the space for the second stage

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In 1926 Dr. Robert Goddard fired the first liquid fuel rocket 184 feet in the air.

Today U.S. rocket experts-using the same scientific principles-can place more than 37,000 pounds into orbit around the earth with Saturn I, the world's biggest booster.

engines. But the fifth Saturn, launched on January 29, 1964, had a powered second stage and a capability of placing 20,000 or more pounds into earth orbit. The achievement was acclaimed by newspapers around the world. The Hindu of Madras, commented: "The 37,000 pound Saturn I rocket successfully put in orbit, is stated to be twice as heavy as anything the Soviet Union has sent out so far and Americans are taking special encouragement from the fact that this Saturn booster rocket has had five consecutive successfullaunchings."

Saturn I is designed to place large payloads in orbits around the earth, to send multi-ton spacecraft to the moon and other. celestial bodies, and to orbit a three-man spaceship around the moon. Ten Saturn rockets are being flown in two groups: the first group of four rockets had engines in only the first stage; the second group, including the fifth and sixth Saturns, had engines operating in both stages, and carried early, unmanned models of the Apollo command and service modules which will be used to land American astronauts on the moon later this decade. The last three Saturn flights will carry large satellites with 100-foot wingspans to investigate the frequency and size of small space particles.

For close-up views of Saturn I as it lifted from its pad at Cape Kennedy on January 29, turn the page.

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This sequence of four photographs taken by an automatic camera atop tOlVerat Cape Kennedy Launch Complex 37, shows Satum 1 lifting from pad and moving past camera ill fury of smoke and flame. Eight first stage engines produce a total nominal thrust of 1,504,000 pounds.

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HE COUNTDOWN FOR A SATURNLAUNCHING begins 18 hours before liftoff. The first stage of the rocket has already been fuelled, radio frequency checks have been made. Then comes the first part of the countdown, some seven hours long. It includes installation of batteries, checks of the propulsion system, ordnance installation and connections.

With these tasks completed, the final, II-hour countdown begins. Additional radio frequency checks are made 10 hours before launch; an hour later an internal power test is made. At T- 8 hours, propulsion units of both stages are prepared. Liquid oxygen is loaded, destruct systems are connected, the service structure is removed. An hour and ten minutes before the launch, control centre doors are sealed, and five minutes later loading of liquid hydrogen begins. And then, one hour before liftoff, the terminal count begins: the pneumatic system is brought to flight pressure, tanking of the liquid hydrogen is completed, telemeters go on, final phase internal power test begins. Inside the control centre expectancy grips scientists and technicians as the last preparations are made. At T- 4 minutes, the range is cleared of all personnel; at T- 3 minutes, the destruct system is armed; the firing command comes at 2 minutes and 33 seconds before launch and the automatic sequence begins. Then, three seconds before liftoff, the engines are ignited, and finally, at T- 0, Saturn lifts away.

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NLY WHEN SATUR I begins its liftoff does the observer sense the technological achievement it represents. The giant rocket, 190 feet tall, moves slowly at first as its engines accelerate to lift about 1,130,000 pounds into space. Two-and-a-half minutes after liftoff, the first stage-its fuel tanks emptyis separated, and the engfnes of the second stage are ignited. By the time the great hulk goes into orbit it is travelling at some 16,650 statute miles per hour.

Saturn I is a giant step from the little rocket which Dr. Robert Goddard launched in 1926. But the differences are mainly differences in size and refinement.

The principles of physics and propulsion which govern all rocket flights are the same and are based on Newton's Third Law of Motion.

Sir Isaac Newton, the English Mathematician, who lived from 1642 to 1727, found from his experiments that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. A toy balloon, blown up and then released, is a rudimentary engine that illustrates the operation of rocket propulsion under Newton's Third Law of Motion. Just as the air rushing from the balloon produces thrust to speed the balloon in the opposite direction, so the gases exhausted from the rocket engine cause the reaction which pushes the rocket forward.

The same principle is the basis of the jet engine now in use on airliners which fly millions of miles every day.

But while the jet airplane flies within the earth's atmosphere and can use the oxygen of the air through which it travels to mix with the fuel for ignition, the rocket travels beyond the earth's atmosphere where there is no oxygen. Therefore it must carry large quantities of oxygen.

The sixth Saturn I carried some 600,000 pounds of liquid oxygen (LOX) to fuel its fourteen-engines as it lifted from Cape Kennedy on May 28.

The purpose of a rocket engine is to produce thrust-"action that will produce an equal and opposite reaction." To accomplish this objective, the rocket engine has five basic components: (1) a pressure vessel; (2) an oxidizer; (3) fuel; (4) combustion chamber; and (5) a nozzle.

Action begins when the pressure vessel forces the propellants-an oxidizer and the fuel-through an injector which blends the propellants to the proper

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mixture. The propellants are then forced into the combustion chamber where the mixture is ignited. Combustion of the propellants creates gases which escape through the nozzle and give the engine its thrust.

The simplicity of the rocket principle is deceptive, however, particularly when the objective is to place more than 37,000 pounds in orbit around the earth.

Efficiency becomes vitally important and the problem is attacked in two areas: first, to reduce the structural weight of the rocket as much as possible, and second, to provide space for the maximum amount of propellants. It is for these reasons that today's larger rockets may be designed in several parts. In effect, each stage is a rocket; each has an independent supply of oxidizer and fuel; each has its own clusters of engines.

The first stage, usually called the "booster," has the task of lifting the twostage rocket from the ground. When its propellants have been consumed, it is detached from the second stage whose engines are then ignited to carry the payload (capsules, instruments, packages, etc.) into orbit.

Saturn I's first stage has eight liquid oxygen-kerosene engines, each developing 188,000 pounds of thrust, mounted in the tail of the rocket. These eight engines produce a total nominal thrust of 1,504,000 pounds. The weight of this first stage at liftoff is some 960,000 pounds, including 850,000 pounds of propellants.

The structural weight of only 110,000 pounds indicates the high degree of efficiency which has been achieved in the design of Saturn 1.

But one of the major breakthroughs in the effort for rocket efficiency was the development of the engines which power the second stage of Saturn 1. The first to use liquid hydrogen, the engine produces one-third more thrust per pound of propellants than conventional rocket fuels.

Saturn's second stage has six of these engines which burn liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen, and carries some 100,000 pounds of propellants-enough for about eight minutes of flight. Because liquid hydrogen is super-cold-it boils at minus 423 degrees Fahrenheit-it produced several difficult problems when design of the engine began in 1958. Successful solution of the problem has made it possible to place 37,000 pounds in orbit

and has definitely placed the U.S. in the lead in rocket power. While there has been a deep interest in rockets, especially among military, scientific and communications groups, responsibility for developing a balanced and efficient space vehicle programme has been assigned by the President to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The NASA programme has concentrated on developing a few space vehicles which could serve the full range of space missions. While economy has been an important factor, the NASA approach repeated usealso permits-through a high state of reliability in launch vehicle systems.

Early rocket systems were many and varied; a listing suggests a catalogue of mythological figures: ATLAS, THOR, JUPITERC, JUNO II. Today, NASA has seven major launch vehicles: SCOUT, a four-stage solid propellant vehicle for small satellites and probes; DELTA, a three-stage liquid fuel rocket which can place about 480 pounds into a 300nautical-mile orbit; THOR-AGENA B, whose two stages are capable of placing 1,600 pounds into a 300-mile orbit; the two-stage ATLAS-AGENAB which can place about 5,000 pounds in orbit or launch a 750-pound lunar probe (it launched Ranger VII on its journey to the moon for close-up photography of the lunar surface); CENTAUR,a two-stage rocket which can lift 8,500 pounds into a 300-mile orbit or launch a 1,300-pound spacecraft to Venus or Mars; SATURN; and NOVA, a space vehicle now being designed which will be able to place 350,000 pounds into a 300-mile orbit or launch a lunar spacecraft probe weighing 150,000 pounds.

These seven rockets provide wide flexibility and efficiency in the American space research programme. The importance of this effort was set forth by the late President John F. Kennedy in a special message to the American Congress: "Now is the time ... for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on earth.

"Space is open to us now, and our eagerness to share its meaning is not governed by the efforts of others. We go into space because whatever mankind must undertake, free men must fully share." â&#x20AC;˘