The New York School Crisis  

Let me start with some statistics. There are 132 elementary schools and 31 junior high schools in New York City whose students are almost entirely (over 90% in the elementary schools; over 85% in the junior highs) Negro and  Puerto …



A Window on Negro Intellectuals  

Soon, One Morning: New Writing by American Negroes edited by Herbert Hill Alfred A. Knopf, 617 pp., $6.95 This collection should not be thought of as inclusive: one will search in vain for such novelists as Mark Kennedy, Julian Mayfield, …



The Use and Misuse of Land  

The Quiet Crisis by Steward I. Udall Holt, Rinehart and Winston God’s Own Junkyard: The Planned Deterioration of America’s Landscape by Peter Blake Holt, Rinehart and Winston Stewart Udall’s book is a brief, sobering history of land use in this …



Of Labor and Its Friends  

The State of the Unions by Paul Jacobs Atheneum, 1963, 303 pp., $5 Labor Today: The Triumphs and Failures of Unionism in the United States by B.J. Widick Houghton Mifflin, 1964, 238 pp., $3.75 America Comes of Middle Age by …



A Guide to Economic Thinking  

Main Currents in Modern Economics: Economic Thought Since 1870 by Ben B. Seligman The Free Press, 1962, 887 pp., $11.75 Unemployment, automation, poverty, the gold drain, taxation policy have pushed economics back to center stage in American social thought. A …



The Agony of Italian Socialism  

The Italian Socialist Party (PSI), after seventy almost unbroken years of political opposition, is now an organic part of the new government in Rome. Representatives of the country’s two major ideological camps—the Catholic and the Marxist —sit face-to-face in working …



South Bend: Tragedy at Studebaker  

The nine workers standing semicircle in the entranceway of UAW Local 5 in South Bend were neither angry nor dour. The full shock of their new status as permanent alumni of the Studebaker Company had not yet hit them. Still  …



The Politics of Poverty  

A few short years ago it was widely assumed that poverty was declining in the U.S. Indeed, to think about the poor was to reveal an inability to overcome the “trauma of the 1930’s,” for the vast improvement in levels …



In Praise of Inconsistency  

I am dealing here with consistency in only one sense of the word: agreement, within thought, between general principles and their application. To me, a man is consistent with himself if, having at his disposal a certain number of general …



The Unreason of State  

When, after hearing about a case of government corruption, police torture, or arbitrary arrest we in Europe call on the state to respect moral values, we forget that the most important privilege modern bureaucratic government guarantees (if not imposes on) …





Prosperity, And Then What?  

It may seem strange to some people that a writer who is chiefly known for stories set in depressed or backward regions should now turn to the problems of prosperity. It may well be asked: is this perchance due to …



Not All Black  

As if their burdens were not overwhelming enough, the leaders of the civil rights movement have had to face a central pessimism at the heart of the Negro revolution. Like his fellow whites at the bottom of the economic pyramid, …



Some Doubts on the Warren Commission  

When the Warren Commission to investigate President Kennedy’s assassination was first appointed, there seemed reason to feel a certain confidence in its work. The announced purpose of the Commission—to get to the very bottom of the tragedy—together with at least …



The Triple Revolution  

In late March there was released in Washington a statement called “The Triple Revolution,” prepared by W. H. Ferry, associated with the Fund for the Republic, Gerald Piel, the science writer, and Robert Theobald, the economist. This policy statement was …