 It's time for the Lawn Jean Chronoscope, a television journal of the important issues of the hour brought to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, a presentation of the Lawn Jean Wittner Watch Company, maker of Lawn Jean, the world's most honored watch, and Wittner, distinguished companion to the world honored Lawn Jean. Good evening. This is Frank Knight. May I introduce our co-editors for this edition of the Lawn Jean Chronoscope? Larry Lasser, CBS News correspondent, and August Heckscher, Chief Editorial writer for the New York Herald Tribune. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Henry Steele Comager, the noted American historian. This, of course, is the time of year when we count our blessings, try to forget our petty ambitions and frustrations, and bless the Lord for letting us live in these United States. Now, our guest tonight, as one of our foremost historians, has been living with and writing about our American history all of his adult life. So, Professor Comager, we'd like to ask you, do you think that this country, when it was smaller and less powerful, but when we had less responsibilities, you think we were happier then than we are now, or had more to be thankful for or less? Well, I think happiness is rather a relative thing. Each generation probably thinks itself happier than any other. From one point of view, it's very fortunate not to have heavy responsibilities. From the point of view of perhaps the intellectual, it's rather an exciting thing to realize that there are great victories to be won, or perhaps great defeats to be suffered. And in that sense, I think maybe said that we're living in a more exciting age than perhaps any other, but not necessarily a happier one. When you look back, Professor Comager, over the history of the country, do you see it in terms of the crises that we've lived through, or do you see it more in terms of a steady progress? Well, I'm inclined to think I see it in terms of steady progress, though progress itself is rather a modern concept, and a very debatable one. We have, however, had a whole series of crises, and I think some of them have appeared at the time to be graver than any that we have in our own day. I think each generation exaggerates the nature and extent of the crisis it faces. But in the historical perspective, I'm inclined to think the Civil War, for example, is a far more serious crisis to the integrity of the Union, to democracy, to a great many things than anything we're facing at the present time, but always with this one obvious exception that never before in our history, in the history of any other country, did man have the opportunity, the danger of annihilating himself, as we now have in that sense, there is a crisis before us of an entirely new dimension, an entirely new character, one which simply can't be explained on any degree of relative more or less by comparing with earlier crises. Professor Commissure, is it your feeling that our traditional feeling of freedoms now, such as that of speech, are more circumscribed now than they have been in the past? I think they are definitely more circumscribed, not so much by legal action as by public opinion. You remember that Tocqueville, in one of those remarkable chapters in democracy in America, pointed out that while there was a great degree of freedom in America, in no country as far as he knew was there as much actual freedom of opinion, freedom of non-conform, no western country was as little actual freedom of opinion as in the United States, and that wasn't quite true in the 1830s when he wrote. What's happened in recent years is that large segments of society have come to bring pressures on freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of communication, freedom of joining and things of that kind, and that the danger doesn't come so much from governmental action, though that always is present, as it does from the general climate of opinion, which operates to discourage things. Surely, Professor Comerger, there's less conformity now than there were in the days of the Puritans. Well, non-conformists were invited to leave in the days of the Puritans and did, and there were lots of other places to go. The Roger Williams went his way, and Anne Hutchison went hers, and other people went elsewhere, and there we had religious conformity, but not conformity in certain other things. I think in an earlier period there was probably a greater degree of social non-conformity, a greater degree of eccentricity than we may have in our old times. Yes, but you have described the danger today as coming more from popular pressures than coming from governmental action, and yet it seems to me that Tocqueville said that the great danger was the danger of the tyranny of the majority, and certainly that has always been, and is today, the danger we live under. That is right. I think he exaggerated the tyranny of the majority. I think this, like Lord Acton's famous aphorism about power corrupting, is one of those aphorisms that has misled us a bit, but I do think there has been a growth in the last decade or so of pressures of opinion that have dissuaded people from exercising their freedom of thought and expression as they should and as we need them to. What are some of the examples of that, for example? Well, I think the examples are very clear. In public service, in the civil service, in the diplomatic corps, for example, a number of very distinguished veterans of the diplomatic corps pointed out that a great many persons in the Foreign Service are no longer prepared to take a chance of discussing controversial questions as candidly as they once did. I think it's undoubtedly true, likewise, in the whole field of education, elementary and secondary, and even in higher education, particularly in state or municipal universities, that people are afraid of controversial subjects, they're afraid to subscribe to dangerous magazines, they're afraid to join suspect organizations, and that there is a growing up a general feeling that it might be better not to stick your neck out. Professor Coman, would you say that this freedom is really necessary to us to survive or is security even more valuable than freedom? Well, I think that is putting the question round about, if I may say so, Mr. Lucer, we have security in order to achieve freedom. We don't have freedom in order to have security. The ultimate security is, I suppose, the security of the grave or the security of the prison, and there's nothing more secure than those can be. Obviously, the whole purpose of security, or of all other programs, is to develop freedom individually and collectively, not only for ourselves but for others. And here it seems to me with elementary consideration possible that without the utmost freedom of discussion, without freedom to explore error, we can arrive at truth. And unless we encourage our scientists, our civil servants, our diplomats, our scholars in every field to discuss and explore every conceivable subject, we have no guarantee against making catastrophic errors of judgment so that freedom is absolutely quintessential for security. Would you say that we actually have gone so far as to diminish America's strength or to harm its security? Yes, I'm persuaded that we have seriously endangered our strength by many of our so-called security measures, which tend to close certain areas for investigation or for discussion, and that we are liable to fall into serious error unless we can reopen questions and discuss them. Here's the historical perspective again. Surely our standard of living now is higher than it ever was before. Do you think that's come to us at a cost of spiritual values or other values? Yes, of course it is higher in some very obvious ways, Mr. Lucera. We all go around patting ourselves on the back because our technological civilization and so forth is given as a very high standard of living. But I think there's a good deal of wishful thinking about this. I think we sometimes flatter ourselves that our standard of living is markedly higher than it was, let us say, a hundred years ago. After all, it isn't necessarily true that a family that can afford two cars and two children has a higher standard of living than a family that has no automobile but eight to ten children. Certainly in the middle classes and the professional classes, families were just as well off or better off in 1800 than in 1950. They had more spacious houses instead of small apartments. They ate larger meals or not necessarily healthier ones. They generally had more land to move about in. Their clothes were perhaps not as numerous but lasted longer. And they were able to raise very large families in general as you give them some form of education. I think we do exaggerate the increase in standard of living in this country. Would you say the same thing is true that we exaggerate our standard of living in comparison to the standard of living of foreign countries, for example? I would say we do exaggerate it with respect to some of the countries of Western Europe. I think our standard of living is distinctly higher than that of a great many even European countries. But to suppose that it's higher in necessity and in all respects than that of Sweden, for example, Denmark, Norway, Holland, Britain, and so forth is to some extent an illusion of some material things that obviously is higher. In other respects it's possibly not quite as high. Mr. Comer, do you think our country is more or less unified in some areas on foreign policy, for example, now than it has been in the past during some of our crises? Oh, I think there probably is a larger degree of agreement but I think the disagreements are perhaps sharper, more vehement than at earlier times. I think we have to go back perhaps to the 1790s and the early 18th, 19th century, the days of the conflict over the French Revolution and Napoleon, for disagreements quite as sharp and divisive as they are today. I think we have to go that far back for the language to find an analogy to the language of Billingsgate, if you will, the language of trees and counter-trees that is so commonly used now. I think let us say quantitatively there's a much larger agreement today. The vast majority of Americans of both parties are in fundamental agreement on what we should do with respect to, let us say, the UN or European policy or Britain, but that where there are differences of opinion, as over far eastern policy, those differences are sharper and deeper and more divisive than they have been for a very long time indeed. Do you think there is ground for a modest encouragement? Are we a rising civilization or perhaps a falling one? You know, that reminds me of the famous little episode before the conclusion of the Federal Convention when old Franklin got up to make the final speech and he looked at the President's chair and noticed a picture of a son and said that the artists had long found it difficult to distinguish between a rising and a setting sun. Often and often he said in the course of these discussions looked at that chair and wondered which it was and now at last I have the happiness to note that it is a rising and not a setting sun. And I'm inclined to think it is still a rising setting sun, but with this final observation that there is greater danger that it may set once and for all today than there ever was before in history and that it will take greater skill and wisdom on our part to prevent it, to prevent an eternal darkness from settling down over us than it ever took before. Thank you very much, Professor Conrader. I'm very pleased to have you here tonight. The opinions expressed on the Launcine Chronoscope were those of the speakers. The editorial board for this edition of the Launcine Chronoscope was Larry Lesser and August Hector. Our distinguished guest was Henry Steele Comager, the noted American historian. Launcine is called the world's most honored watch. Now just what does that mean? It means exactly what it says. 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