As the
summer of 2005 turns into autumn, each new public opinion poll reports
even further hemorrhaging of voters' confidence in the federal government
and the Bush administration. Before we slip into a paralysis of despair,
now is a good time to celebrate a few of our collective successes that
we have achieved through our federal government. In the timeless wisdom
of one of the greatest of all Republican presidents, Theodore Roosevelt,
"The government is us; we are the government, you and I."
Consider the summer of 1862. The Civil War, which would take more American
lives than all the nation's other wars, raged. Yet, a Vermont Republican
congressman, Justin Smith Morrill, was able to win passage over the all-out
opposition of states' rights conservatives of a radical initiative that
provided to all states not in rebellion 30,000 acres of federal land for
each senator and congressman the state had -- some 17 million acres in
all.
With the proceeds from those land sales, a state was to build a public
college that would teach engineering and agriculture, along with the liberal
arts and military training. The great universities of Wisconsin, Michigan,
Minnesota and California were among the 70 land-grant schools eventually
built.
What makes this so remarkable is that Justin Morrill and President Abraham
Lincoln and their colleagues, in the middle of the nation's most divisive
and bloody war fought entirely on American soil and when 98 percent of
the population had not so much as set foot on a college campus, had so
much confidence in their country and their countrymen's future.
It turned out to be confidence well-placed. From the dedication and work
of individuals at these "government" colleges have come the
Salk and Sabin vaccines, streptomycin, the digital computer and the first
atom-smasher. U.S. land-grant colleges have produced more Nobel Prize
winners than all the universities of Europe.
Our federal government has had more recent successes to celebrate. The
distinguished scholar Paul Light surveyed academics and compiled an impressive
list of government's greatest endeavors since World War II. The rebuilding
of war-torn Europe through President Harry Truman's Marshall Plan, named
for General -- and later Secretary of both State and Defense -- George
C. Marshall, saved millions of people from death, starvation, domination
and terror. All the tax-cuts in the world or private sector ingenuity
never could have wrought that miracle. It took the U.S. government.
Just as it was only the federal government that could end racial segregation
and officially sanctioned discrimination. That's what we did through the
civil rights acts of the 1960s, which guaranteed the right to vote, the
right to eat in a restaurant, go to a movie and stay in a hotel, and later,
the right to buy a home in any neighborhood. Another strain of discrimination
and segregation was overcome by the 1990 disabilities act.
Through the successful efforts of the federal government -- and bipartisan
political leadership -- the food we eat, the water we drink and the air
we breathe are all cleaner and safer. President Jimmy Carter perceptively
said: "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense
... human rights invented America."
The government of the United States has made blunders, but it has also
profoundly advanced human rights around the world. We prevailed over communism
and have reduced the likelihood of nuclear war. Hunger has been reduced.
As a direct consequence of Social Security and Medicare, the poverty rate
among the country's elderly is the lowest in history and the life expectancy
is the highest.
The feds are far from infallible. Government can still be imperious. But
at a time when our national self-confidence is in dangerously short supply,
we would do well to celebrate our common successes we have collectively
achieved. T.R. was right: "The government is us; we are the government,
you and I."
