The Back Bench

Party of the century (2011 version)

2011-06-05T17:00:00.000-07:00

The celebration of my 60th birthday quickly turned into “The Gene & Wei-Jen Show,” although I had no advance notice that such a thing would occur. A distinguished assemblage of 35 guests joined their humble host at the Club Pheasant in West Sacramento for an evening of refined sophistication, but soon discovered it was to be quite otherwise.

Gene Weisskopf takes charge as the evening's emcee, having traveled all the way down from Washington State to grace the event with his presence (and before yet another absence resulted in his deletion from the guest list).

Wei-Jen Harrison arranged to haul in cases of champagne with which to toast the event. Jim Walker, who disapproves of Dionysian behavior, begins to be concerned that the evening's decorum may not last.

Guests arrive at the Pheasant Club and start finding their places and reading each other's nametags. Acquaintances are made or renewed.

Early in the evening, Gene chooses to bide his time, chatting amiably over the salad with Peter Horton. No one suspects a thing yet.

The cake from Konditorei (the Austrian bakery in Davis) attracts attention. The decoration is a model of C₆₀, a fullerene molecule composed entirely of carbon atoms. (It's also called a “bucky ball.”)

The party includes both Candis Spallina and Peter Faure, high school classmates of the birthday boy (Porterville Union High School, Class of 1969). Traci Sinclair Knox and Maria Acuña Feldman marvel that such elderly people are allowed out on their own on a Saturday evening.

The evening is young for Joan Sallee, Jane de León, Aileen McGarry, and Melissa Green, even if the host is not.

Dan Kehew is concerned that there will be photographic evidence of his attendance. He fears for his reputation. Nancy Reitz, however, is not worried at all. Since she became a math dean, all the damage that could be done has been done. (The elusive Ted Ridgway is seen in the center of the photograph. Amazingly, he will not be seen again.)

First-timer Andrew Halseth is concerned that he has been seated at the kids' table. The presence of Eric Butow and Jim Walker would seem to confirm that suspicion, but Sherman Stein is an obvious counterexample.

Eric Butow and Benjamin Etgen scoff at the notion that one table is for grownups and the other is for kids, even while providing evidence for that hypothesis.

Joan Sallee reacts to the rumor that her husband is seated at the kids' table. She speculates that the criterion is behavioral rather than chronological. Maria smiles because Tim is seated there, too.

Tim Feldman smiles for the camera, demonstrating his laid-back poise and equanimity.

Aileen points out that her placement at the grownups' table must be a tribute to her poise and maturity. Melissa does her best to humor her.

Mark Sammut and Elaine Kasimatis flank the host, who is clearly giddy on the occasion of his birthday dinner.

Elaine attended UC Davis with the birthday boy back in the seventies (but she actually graduated).

Paul Knox and Mark Sammut are seated in the Reno section of the dinner party, next to the host so that he can keep an eye on them. Paul would like to talk about literary deconstructionism and Mark is an expert on theater organ reconstruction. It could be a long evening.

Steve Sutfin actually survived the experience of being in the host's calculus class. Elaine sympathizes over his cruel ordeal.

Trina Miller is another Porterville High alumna. She tells Sandy McKaig stories about how wonderful it was. Sandy clearly believes her.

Socorro Tril wants to know if life in Porterville was really the idyllic pastorale that legend says it was. Candis and Peter solemnly confirm that the legends are true. Candis and Peter are not to be trusted.

Wei-Jen explains to Steve that she will take good care of him during the evening meal. Selene Jacobs wonders if she will need to serve as chaperon. Selene has experience with grade-school children; she can handle this crowd.

Benjamin Etgen: “I was a student in one of Tony's classes!”
Tom Sallee: “Heck, I was one of Tony's professors!”

Benjamin: “Tom wins! His experience was more painful!”

Brandon Muranaka sees a chance to grab someone's beer. Someone carded him, so he doesn't have one of his own. Andy and Sherman pay no attention to Brandon's shocking behavior.

Trina wonders why Brandon is acting more cheerful all of a sudden. David Murray wonders what happened to his beer.

Brandon: “You can't pin anything on me!”
Trina: “I saw nothing!”

Benjamin: “I have photographic evidence of Brandon's behavior!”

Brandon: “I have even more evidence on everybody else. Let's join forces!”
The photographs from the dinner party suddenly become quite redundant in content.

Hannah Stein and Jane Viar listen intently as Melissa explains that Tony's birthday dinners are not exactly the equivalent of a literary salon. (Hannah refrains from pointing out that she is quite well aware of this.)

Andy and Sherman participate in the ritual opening and reading of the birthday cards. This is actually the entertainment segment of the evening's program and the high point of the dinner party. (No, it really is!)

Once again, the birthday cards are so clever, witty, and ribaldly humorous that Alan Willendrup and Brandon Muranaka cannot contain their laughter.

Paul would like some help understanding the birthday cards. They're keyed to more of a California-level of humor and Paul is from Nevada. He suspects his tastes are too refined to quickly grasp the esoteric humor. Hannah and Jane decide it will be more fun to let Paul figure them out on his own.

Gene takes charge of the proceedings by brandishing his copy of Dear Dairy. He's only one of three people present who possess the bound edition of the manuscript, but he's the only one with the chutzpah to wave it around. He seeks the guests' sympathy for having been one of the first readers of the novel.

The dinner guests express their sympathy at Gene's plight, since he fell for the old hey-read-my-novel ploy. As friendly impositions go, it's even worse than the hey-help-me-move gimmick.

Gene has sublimated his angst by taking reams of Dear Dairy print-outs and slicing them up into notepaper. He had them bound into pads and brought enough for everyone at dinner.

The host discovers that his notepad contains text from the episode of Jojo's accidental circumcision. (It happened to Tristram Shandy. No reason it couldn't also happen to Jojo Francisco.)

David Viar examines his notepad: “Hey, these chapters are even shorter than the ones in the draft that I read! I should have waited for this version!”

Thanks to some collaborative detective work by Gene and Eric, it was discovered that the birthday boy had created a scholarship at Porterville College in honor of his late calculus instructor. Gene reported that the party guests could take the opportunity to contribute to the Wilcoxon memorial fund. Unbeknownst to the host, Eric and Gene had contribution slips which were distributed to the attendees. (Mercifully, the fundraising pitch did not interrupt the proceedings as much as those on public television.)

Wei-Jen moves into action. It's time to turn up the heat on the evening's roast. She calls for stories from the host's long-time friends.

Wei-Jen tries to strangle Socorro and Candis into submission. Candis surrenders and tells a story about her days as the host's classmate at Porterville High: “Tony was the smartest kid in school and would correct the teachers when they made mistakes.” Candis was making it up as she went along, but—amazingly enough—it was all true! (Mostly.)

The crowd eats up Candis's narrative. An English-teacher/librarian knows how to hold an audience.

Wei-Jen: “What happened when you and Tony were in grad school?”
Elaine: “I'll never tell! Not even the story about Tony typing my dissertation for me!”
(It was an all-night word-processing job.)

Peter Faure: “I totally have the goods on this guy, but I'd like to be invited back next year.”
Traci Knox: “Would anyone care that Paul and Tony can talk on the phone about books and school for three hours at a time?”

Sherman Stein, the host's mentor at UC Davis, withdraws his objection to the design on the birthday cake and agrees that the depicted geometric object is mathematically feasible.

Tom Sallee regales the dinner guests with tales from UC Davis. He taught the host non-Euclidean geometry and, in return, got a term paper titled “The relationship of non-Euclidean geometry to the universe and everything in it.” Tom agreed that the topic seemed rather ambitious, but admitted to having liked the paper anyway. Many years later he also liked the host's dissertation.

Steve: “So, Wei-Jen, you want me to tell tales out of school, too?”
Wei-Jen: “No. I just like leaning against you this way.”

Wei-Jen: Hey, Alan. Did you see me pinch Brandon?
Brandon: Ow! Someone pinched me!

Wei-Jen chivvies David into reminiscing about the host's role as faculty co-chair of ARC's accreditation self-study report. David fondly remembers that Tony was his second choice for the job. (The college's accreditation was reaffirmed anyway.)

Jane adds her account of the accreditation ordeal and smiles to recall that she was the president's first choice for the job of faculty co-chair.

Wei-Jen: “Come on, Benji. I'm sure you have stories you can tell!”
Benjamin: “My arm. Ow! My arm!”

Wei-Jen: “That's okay. I think we have enough!”

Wei-Jen: “Nothing I do here tonight is going into my personnel file, is it?”

Nancy: “You're in the clear, Wei-Jen. It's after hours!”
Dan: “I've got the goods on her! See how she's trying to steal the photographic evidence from me?”

The voices in his head tell the host to do a dramatic reading from his novel. He chooses the “Boys meet girls,” episode—hardly an area of special expertise. (Aren't novelists supposed to “write what you know”?)

The guests give the host their rapt attention. If they listen politely, there might be cake. (Is that Ted hiding behind Benjamin? Could be.)

Everyone gets toasted! (You know what I mean.)

David & Jane: “Thanks for a lovely evening.”
Wei-Jen: “Don't worry, Steve. We'll always have West Sacramento.”

Aileen: “Yeah, it's the end of the evening and I can still stand up straight. Want to make something of it?”

An interview with Martin Gardner

2010-05-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

The news of Martin Gardner's death sent me digging through my archives—which in my case is a fancy word for messy filing cabinets and cardboard boxes stuffed with decades of detritus. Despite the chaos, I found what I was looking for.

It was my privilege to be acquainted with Martin and to have been in touch with him at intervals. Most recently, I was given the task of creating the index to his revision of Silvanus Thompson's Calculus Made Easy. (Check the index for yourself. I sneaked my name into it.) More significant, however, was the opportunity to interview him in 1979, right on the eve of his retirement from the “Mathematical Games” column in Scientific American magazine. That legendary column was a wellspring of inspiration for mathematicians of all stripes, whether recreational, professional, or wanna-be.

The Martin Gardner interview was under the auspices of The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal of the Mathematical Association of America. (The journal continues in existence today as the somewhat sleeker College Mathematics Journal.) The magazine had previously commissioned me to interview Stan Ulam, who was in residence as a visiting professor for the 1979 winter quarter at the University of California, Davis. The journal's editor, Donald J. Albers, liked the result enough to suggest some additional projects, one of which involved Gardner. (The other subject was Benoit Mandelbrot.)

On the last day of February, 1979, a conference call was set up with Martin Gardner. I had my tape recorder's microphone attached to my handset as I waited with notebook in hand and a sheaf of questions. The primitive technology of the day proved equal to the task of supporting a multi-party conference call and capturing it on tape. I created a transcript that was edited down to manageable proportions for The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal, which published “A Conversation with Martin Gardner” in its September 1979 edition. (It was later republished in Mathematical People, a compilation of math interviews edited by Don Albers and Lynn Steen. Alas, it was omitted from the recently published second edition, although my interviews with Ulam and Mandelbrot still made the cut.)

Much of the Gardner interview ended up on the cutting-room floor as it made its transition to printed form. I could not, however, resist typing up a clean copy of the raw transcript for my archives. That is what I went looking for and that is what I found. And that is what I have reproduced below, after a lengthy scanning session.

It is the transcript of a live multi-party conversation, so there are interruptions and sentence fragments, but it is also the complete record of the extemporaneous responses and musings of one of the great expositors of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

This is for you, Martin.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN GARDNER

February 28, 1979

Participants

Donald J. Albers, Department of Mathematics, Menlo College, Menlo Park, California; Editor, The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal
Anthony Barcellos, Department of Mathematics, University of California, Davis
Martin Gardner, “Mathematical Games” columnist and author, Scientific American
Ronald L. Graham, Head, Discrete Mathematics Section, Bell Laboratories, New Jersey
Peter Renz, Editor, W. H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco
S. M. Ulam, Department of Mathematics, University of Florida, Gainesville

This is the literal transcript of a six-party conference telephone call. Short portions of the conversation which were lost while changing cassette tape cartridges are reconstructed from my notes and recollection. Bracketed comments inserted in the dialogue occurred at precisely those points in the conversation. Brackets are also used for explanatory interpolations. Ambiguous words or phrases are flagged by a bracketed question mark.
—A. Barcellos

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARTIN GARDNER
February 28, 1979

Donald Albers: Peter, you know everyone, so why don’t you take charge of the introductions?

Peter Renz: All right. Martin Gardner is, of course that distant-sounding voice from the east. And, I think, Martin, you know Ron Graham, of course.

Martin Gardner: Sure. Hi, Ron.

Ron Graham: Hi, Martin. How’re you doing?

Gardner: Pretty good.

Renz: And myself. And, you probably know Stan Ulam, but I—

Graham: Yeah. Yeah, we had dinner once.

Ulam: Hi.

Gardner: Yeah, sure, I know Stan. Hi, Stan.

Renz: Good.

Gardner: Is Persi [Diaconis] on the line?

Graham: No, I— Who knows where Persi is? [Gardner: I see. Okay.] He’s in the east as far as I know.

Renz: He’s hard to catch hold of. Okay, and speaking sort of as the interviewer for The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal is Tony Barcellos. Hello, Tony?

Barcellos: Yes, I’m right here. It’s a pleasure, Mr. Gardner.

Gardner: Hi, Tony. Glad to meet you.

Renz: And also the editor of The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal, Don Albers.

Albers: Hi.

Gardner: Hi, Don.

Albers: How are you?

Renz: And I just, as background, would mention that the Journal has interviewed quite a few people, or will be interviewing them. Pólya was their first one. They’ve interviewed Paul Erdős. And Tony just did an interview with Stan; and they’re having an interview with Coxeter, and Constance Reid is scheduled, too. So you’re in good company.

Gardner: Yeah, I’m out of my depths in this company.

Renz: Well, why don’t I turn the chair over to Tony and let him ask a few questions.

Gardner: All right.

Barcellos: Thank you, Peter. Mr. Gardner, we’re going to try to get in your own words a few things about where you’ve come to your present estate and the route you traveled along the way, because we think a lot of people might be interested in knowing how a philosophy student at the University of Chicago finds himself writing about mathematical games and recreations for Scientific American. [Gardner: Uh-huh?] And so first off I’d like to ask you: Do you have any particular view on how this happened? Do you think there are reasons, or is this just a lucky, or unlucky, occurrence for you?

Gardner: Well, it was a combination of a life-long interest in mathematics, without any formal training, combined with just a series of accidents. When I was in high school my great love was mathematics, and that was my high school major—whatever that means. And I planned when I was in high school— My hopes were to become a physicist. And I wrote to Caltech, which was where I wanted to go, and found that I had to spend two years in college first before they would take me. So I went to the University of Chicago, and in my two years there I got hooked on philosophy, especially philosophy of science. So instead of transferring to Caltech I just stayed on at the University and got a bachelor’s degree. And I kept up my interest in math, but I didn’t take any courses in math in college. And then I— After I graduated I got into journalism, and then I spent four years in the Navy. And after my service in the Navy I went back to Chicago for a couple of years and took some graduate courses from Carnap, but didn’t get any higher degree; but it was in the field of philosophy of science. Then I went to New York City to become a free-lancer, and for the first eight years I was earning my living writing for a magazine for children called Humpty Dumpty.

Barcellos: I think I read it.

Gardner: [Laughs] And I did the work at home, but I got paid a moderate amount for it. And I did the puzzles for the magazine. And then I sold to Scientific American an article that ran as a regular article in the magazine on the hexaflexagon.

Barcellos: You just wrote this and sent it off to them, or did someone—?

Gardner: No, I just wrote it and sent it off to them. I had sold them one previous article on logic machines a few years before. And so I queried them about this second piece, explained what the flexagon was, and they said, “Go ahead.” So I made a trip to Princeton and I interviewed John Tukey, who was one of the discoverers of flexagons. And Bryant Tuckerman was also there, and I interviewed him. He—Tuckerman, Tukey, and Richard Feynman were the three who—and there was a fourth man named [Arthur H.] Stone, from England—and they were the four that did the pioneer work on hexaflexagons when they were undergraduates at Princeton. I never met Stone, and I’ve never met Feynman, but I did talk to Tukey and Tuckerman; and then I put together a piece on hexaflexagons. And after that ran in the Scientific American, Gerard Piel, the publisher, called me in and asked me if I thought there was enough material in the field of recreational mathematics to justify a monthly feature. And at that time I don’t think I owned any books on recreational math at all, but I knew that there was a big field out there.

Graham: Wow.

Gardner: I said, “Oh, sure, there’s plenty of material. And we’ll go home and do a first column and we’ll take it from there.” I rushed around New York and bought all the major references that I could find—like [W.W. Rouse] Ball’s, for example, and [Maurice] Kraitchik’s book; and started a library. And so I turned in a column which ran in the next issue of Scientific American, and Jerry Piel liked it. And, I must say, this is about the time that [James R.] Newman had just brought out the four volumes of The World of Mathematics, Simon and Schuster. And Newman was the book review editor of Scientific American at the time. And nobody expected that these four volumes would become a best seller, but they did. They really took off and went through innumerable printings. And at that time Simon and Schuster was printing Scientific American books, so we had a close working relationship. So Jerry Piel, the publisher of Scientific American, suddenly realized there was this tremendous market out there among the readers of the magazine, that he thought were interested in mathematics. So it came as sort of a revelation. And so that was the start of my column. It was Jerry Piel’s idea that I do it. And I started it and it overlapped for a few months with my work for Humpty, and I found that I couldn’t do the two together—I just didn’t have enough time. So I dropped out of Humpty, and I’ve been doing the column ever since. And that’s how it started. And I have enjoyed doing it because I love mathematics, and I have a pretty good head for it, in general, on a rather low level. And the fact that I don’t know too much about mathematics really, I think, works to my advantage in the column: If I can’t understand what I’m writing about, why, my readers can’t either. So I’ve kept it going ever since. A lot of readers think I know a lot more about math than I do.

Albers: Can we get back to high school for a minute, where you said your interests [Gardner: Right.] were already quite strong? In fact, in your first Scientific American Book of Puzzles and Diversions you mention, in your dedication, Pauline Baker Perry, “My first guide in the endless labyrinth.” Was that in mathematics or was it in physics?

Gardner: That’s right. She was a mathematics teacher at the high school I went to in Tulsa and I was very—I thought she was an excellent teacher and was, taking courses from her. There was a course in geometry that I took from her. And that was my first introduction to mathematics. And somehow she managed to communicate some of the beauty and elegance of geometry. And I’ve always— She died many years ago, but I always felt [??] And so as I say, mathematics was my major and I made A’s in my math courses; as I say, I had no intention of becoming a mathematician at the time, because my major interest then was in physics.

Barcellos: Can you explain what it is about mathematics that makes you like it so much, or that interests you so much about it?

Gardner: Well, no, not—I can’t say anything different than mathematicians have said before. It’s just the patterns, and their order, and their beauty, and the way it all fits together so it all comes out right in the end. And you get an enormous feeling of satisfaction when you think through a proof or understand something. It’s an exercise in pure reason. Almost all the great mathematicians, when you think about it, said something like that.

Barcellos: What is it that causes you to choose topics now? Do you come up with most of them or are they suggested to you by and large? What mix?

Gardner: Well, it’s hard to say how I choose a topic. I have a lot of things in mind. I have a big file of possible future topics, gathered over the years, that I have in file folders. And I try to pick a topic that is as different as possible from the last few topics; that’s one of my criteria in choosing topics, so that I get a maximum variety from month to month. So if I do a column—let’s say it’s heavily loaded with geometry—in one issue, I’ll try to stay away from geometry in the next few issues, so that there’s sort of a surprise element in the column. And then I try to pick topics that tie in, that are half in the field of recreational math but also lead into what I think is significant mathematics, mathematical topics. So there’s always a big emphasis on the recreational aspect, but I hope that the column gets the reader into something a little less trivial.

Barcellos: What was the reaction when you used the column—let’s see, it was in ‘75, the April issue—and you wrote your April Fool’s joke. How did people react to that? Were they mostly amused or mostly distressed?

Gardner: I think that eventually they were mostly amused, but it came as a tremendous surprise to me and also to the editors of the magazine; because when I turned in the column it seemed inconceivable to me that anybody would take it very seriously. [Laughter]

Graham: Big surprise though. Did you?

Gardner: Yeah. And, of course, the editors of Scientific American didn’t think anybody would take it very seriously either.

Barcellos: I almost sat down and started coloring the thing [5-color map] until I read some of the other “shattering” discoveries and realized that someone was pulling a joke on us.

Gardner: Right. And to the surprise of all of us, why, it drew, I think, a bigger response than almost any column that I’ve ever done. I got several thousand letters on it. And the thing that startled me most about the letters was that I was getting letters from people who took it all seriously except for one item in the column that was in their specialty. For example—

Renz: These are from mathematicians, right? You got letters from professional mathematicians?

Gardner: Well, and physicists—

Renz: And physicists.

Gardner: Yes, for example, I got about a thousand letters from physicists. And a typical letter would start off and say, “I enjoyed very much your column, and you’re doing us a great service by letting us know about these new breakthroughs, but I think you make a terrible mistake in demolishing relativity, because that paradox can be explained.” And then there would follow four or five pages of elaborate diagrams showing why it was not a paradox. Of course, I have even written a popular book on relativity theory, so they didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. But what surprised me was that the physicists who wrote me these letters apparently thought it was quite possible that the game of chess had been solved. One of my items was that it had been proved by computers that, I think, that black could always win by opening with pawn to king rook four. And I even exchanged some letters with physicists who told me quite frankly; they said, well, they didn’t know much about chess or about computers, and it sounded very plausible. [Laughter]

Barcellos: Why did you do it, Martin?

Gardner: What?

Barcellos: Why did you write the column? Was there a purpose?

Gardner: No, it was just a funny idea that I had. There have been hoax articles in the past in science magazines. The one that I think I had in mind was when I was a boy a magazine that I think I loved more than any other was called Science and Invention, published by Hugo Gernsback. And its golden years were in the twenties, and I was in high school when I started reading it. And they did a cover story that was a hoax, which showed a picture of a woman sitting in a chair that was suspended in mid-air with a story about the discovery of an anti-gravity device. And I fell for it when I first read it, and it created quite a sensation for its day.

Barcellos: You said that you got letters from all sorts of different people: mathematicians, physicists, and others. What is your readership like? Mostly professional? Mostly high school, college students?

Gardner: Well, I get a tremendous mixture. A lot of mathematicians read the column, and then a lot of high school students read the column. The map-coloring thing drew the most letters, and, as you mentioned a moment ago, a lot of people colored the map and then they sent me the colored map and showed that it could actually be colored. And that, by the way, that hoax, is still going on. About a year ago somebody sent me a clipping from an Australian paper. They had just published the fact that the four color theorem had been proved by Haken and Appel, and then some reader wrote in—and they published the reader’s letter—and said that this proof couldn’t possibly be true because Scientific American had published a map which was a counterexample.

Barcellos: So this will live on.

Gardner: That was about a year ago.

Albers: This has really been a memorable column to you then, certainly. Among your many columns is there anyone or two that you are especially proud of?

Gardner: Well, I always enjoy—since I’m very much interested in philosophy—I particularly enjoy writing columns that get over into philosophical things. And so I think that the columns that I’ve done that overlap with philosophical issues are the ones that I’ve most enjoyed. For example, I did a column a few years ago on a marvelous paradox called Newcomb’s paradox, in decision theory. And that drew an enormous number of letters too. And that’s something that I picked up from Coxeter, and wrote an article on that. And that I particularly enjoyed doing because it’s a very tricky paradox in decision theory, and I’m not sure that it’s even yet resolved. And that drew so many letters that I persuaded Professor Nozick at Harvard, who was the person Who wrote a paper about the paradox, to do a guest column on it. So the following year he did a column for me; as I said, he had done a paper on it. And that produced another flood of letters. I think that’s one of my favorite columns. And then every once in a while I get a sort of a scoop. The last scoop that I got was when I heard about the public cryptograph from Ron Rivest at MIT. And he wrote me a letter about it and I realized what a big breakthrough this was for cryptography, and I based a column on it. And that was the first publication the general public had on public-key cryptography. And I think that column probably aroused more interest—professional math interest—than any other column. The first time they’d heard about it.

Barcellos: Do you get many scoops? Are you very frequently the first person beside the discoverer to know what has just happened in something or other?

Gardner: Oh, no, no. No, that happens very, very rarely, and the Rivest feat was quite an exception; and that was really a significant discovery, I think, on the part of Ron, of course. I have one coming up, that is, another kind of a first publication, and that’s the generalization of tic-tac-toe that was done by Frank Harary. It ties in with Ramsey’s number, but this is more on a recreational level.

Renz: I have a question that runs along the same lines. You indicated that your initial sources were all the standard books on recreational mathematics that you could lay your hands on at the time. But you must have developed other interesting [Gardner: Right.], more arcane, sources; and also, obviously, both a network of correspondents and then also—not only people who write in to you—but people that you might consult with about something or other; something comes along that’s—

Gardner: That’s right. Aside from the books—and I try to buy all those books that come out in the recreational math field—the second big source, of course, are periodicals, and I subscribe to about ten journals that are most inclined to publish stuff in recreational problems and so on. And, of course, there’s the Journal of Recreational Mathematics. And the third big source is just a big correspondence with readers who send me ideas.

Renz: Okay, how long did it, was it, before you, or how did you begin to develop people that, you know, when something came in that seemed interesting but you might wonder whether this was quite right, or what the long and short of it was, in other words, a kind of underground spy network, if you will. [Gardner: Right.] When did you find that developing; very soon, or did it—? Do you have such a thing?

Gardner: Yes, I think it developed very soon. Once the column became popular and the people interested in recreational math started reading it, why, they started writing to me. And then if I replied on my own stationery, why then they could write to me directly, and not have to go through Scientific American. So about half the correspondence I get comes through the magazine and about half I get directly. And then if it’s something that I don’t quite understand, why I rely on mathematicians that I know like Stan Ulam and Ron Graham and so on to give me an opinion.

Barcellos: I’d like to know whether or not you had any thoughts about something you said in Fads and Fallacies quite some time ago. And the sentence I was speaking about was the one where you say “It is not at all amusing when people are misled by scientific claptrap.” Now that was quite some time ago when you wrote Fads and Fallacies in the early fifties. Do you think things have gotten any better or-are people more gullible, susceptible, to pseudoscience than ever before?

Gardner: Oh, I think things have gotten tremendously worse in the last twenty years, as far as science is concerned. I don’t observe any great increase in pseudo-mathematics. And I don’t know why that is. There are always people around who are trisecting the angle and things like that and, of course, I hear from them occasionally; but I haven’t noticed any increase, in the last fifteen or twenty years, in the number of pseudo-mathematicians. But the interest in pseudoscience on the part of the general public has been on an incredible rise for the last few years. I’m not sure I know exactly why. But this gets away from mathematics in the direction of pseudoscience. I don’t know whether you want to go into all that or not.

Renz: Well, in terms of your writing activity, is it something that you ever had any inclination to return to, I mean, to strike another blow directly against—?

Gardner: Well, I’ve often thought of doing a sequel to Fads and Fallacies—a volume that would sort of update it, but I didn’t have enough time to do it. I don’t know if you’ve all heard about John Wheeler’s blast at the AAAS. You’ve all heard about that? [No.] Because this is the first time, I think, that a really major scientist has taken a strong position on the rise of pseudoscience. And it’s kind of amusing. Wheeler was, as I understand it, and this comes to me directly from friends— Wheeler had been attending a conference in Switzerland, and he was speaking on the subject of quantum mechanics and consciousness. And a parapsychologist from France rushed up to him afterward and embraced him and said, “I’m so happy, Dr. Wheeler, to learn that you think quantum mechanics provides an explanation for psychic phenomena.” And poor Wheeler was taken aback and realized for the first time that the papers that he’s been writing on quantum mechanics had been picked up and misinterpreted by the parapsychologists, and that they were quoting him all over the place as justification. The most popular view now among the parapsychologists views quantum mechanical phenomena as related to parapsychology. So when Wheeler got back and attended the AAAS conference in Houston and found himself on the same panel with Puthoff and Targ of SRI, who lectured on their clairvoyance tests; and Charles Honorton, a parapsychologist from Maimonides. And so he really gave a strong statement which appears as an appendix to the paper which started out by saying that if he had known that they were on the panel he wouldn’t have come. And then he goes on to recommend that the AAAS have a new vote to decide whether the parapsychologists should remain an affiliate of the AAAS, and he said that when Margaret Mead had first recommended it ten years ago he had voted against it. And in the ten years since that the situation had gotten so much worse, and funding was being diverted now into crazy theories. And he pointed out that we now have two thousand professional astronomers whereas there are twenty thousand professional astrologers. So he thought it was time for the AAAS to reconsider whether the parapsychologists should have a special affiliation with the organization. And he’s made a formal request for a new vote. I don’t know how that will turn out. But he had a marvelous subhead for his appendix which reads “Where There’s Smoke There’s Smoke.” [Laughter]

Barcellos: When I found out that I was going to get to talk to you, Mr. Gardner, I asked some of the mathematicians here at UC Davis whether or not they’d like to ask you any questions in particular. Sherman Stein wants to know if you think mathematicians are doing anything wrong in their public relations and whether or not you know of other scientists or disciplines that do it better, so people out there know what we’re up to.

Gardner: Well, that’s a tough one, because almost all the really exciting research going on in mathematics is not the sort of thing that the public can understand. It takes considerable knowledge of mathematics to know what the breakthroughs are. And the really big breakthroughs that take place are just—it seems almost impossible to put it in terms that the general public can understand, whereas big breakthroughs in biology and so on are popularized, I think, fairly easily. So I really, I really don’t know what could be done that would improve public relations more. Certainly mathematicians like Sherman Stein have done a marvelous job of doing popular articles on the subject, and books that the layman can read and understand. But I really don’t know what could be done that isn’t already being done.

Ulam: Well, I think that you, Martin, do that. In fact, you know, yesterday Ron Graham gave a marvelous, really interesting lecture about some esoteric question; and I was wondering during it, Well, the question sounds very complicated, why devote so much ingenuity? Then I remember what, I think, Fourier or Laplace wrote: That mathematics—one reason for its being—is to defend the honor of the human mind. And I think your column does it, defends the honor—maybe [Gardner: Why, thank you.] also the sense of humor—of the human brain, in mathematics. This is possible.

Gardner: Well, it would be good if other science magazines would run similar columns on mathematics, and perhaps they will. Right now Time magazine is making preparations for a new magazine devoted to science; and there’s a good probability that it will go through, edited by Leon Jaroff. And I think he’s planning to have some sort of a department devoted to reporting on mathematics; and if so, why that would be good.

[End; Side I]

Renz: Will this be a magazine along the same lines as Omni?

Gardner: No, it won’t be at all like Omni. It’s going to be a much more serious science magazine—same kind of popular presentation, but a little more responsible. The dummy is being prepared now, and then after the dummy is completed and printed the decision will be made as to whether it will become a monthly or not. And that’ll be made probably in spring. I hope it goes through, because I think Leon Jaroff will do a very good job on it, and it’ll fill a place that should have filled but I don’t think quite does it because Guccione is pressing for more and more emphasis on the paranormal. And I think that the magazine is going to have more and more of that in it. For example, the March issue has a horrendous article about how three psychics found a sunken ship somewhere. It’s just pure pseudoscience—presented as genuine science.

Barcellos: If perhaps the scientific community made a greater effort to tell the public what they’re up to and What’s going on, do you think perhaps increased public relations would make people more appreciative of what science is as opposed to what is being ladled out in—?

Gardner: Yes, I think so. However, I can understand why scientists are reluctant to take time off from their work in order to appear on a TV program, let’s say, or write a popular article attacking pseudoscience. So I don’t blame them for not doing it, but I think that the situation has gotten so bad now that they’re beginning to get worried about funding, and I think that you may see more and more of them taking a little time for public relations. But so far only a very small number do that: Carl Sagan, for example, and his writings about Velikovsky, an example of an astronomer taking the time to meet Velikovsky; most astronomers wouldn’t want to waste time even meeting Velikovsky. But Sagan has a book coming out, by the way, in a couple of months called Broca’s Brain that is a collection of essays; and a portion of the book is devoted entirely to pseudoscience, articles Sagan has written about it—not just Velikovsky, but others as well. So I think he is being a rather influential voice now in the direction of sanity.

Albers: It seems to me you’re saying there’s a responsibility to know what the opposition is up to that scientists have perhaps ignored.

Gardner: Yeah, I think so. The other day I was reading some old essays by T. H. Huxley, for example. And I have a book of Huxley’s collected essays, and I noticed that quite a number of them deal with what he regarded as pseudoscience of the time, and has the word “pseudoscience” in the title. And Huxley, who, as you know, was one of the great popularizers of science, and not only a good geologist and biologist, but a very skillful writer. And he wrote quite a number of articles in his day that were specific exposes of attacks on the theory of evolution, and other kinds of pseudoscience floating around at the time.

Renz: Martin?

Gardner: Yeah?

Renz: Martin, I wonder if you could mention some of the books or magazines or columns which you think would be of—well, that not everyone might know about that you think are particularly attractive to people who are interested in, say, recreational mathematics, or learning more about mathematics.

Gardner: You mean columns that I’ve written?

Renz: No, no; well, I was thinking of—

Gardner: Oh, you mean—

Renz: Further reading kind of—

Gardner: Oh. Well, there are a number of classics in the field. Certainly the great English classic is Ball’s book on recreational math, Essays in Recreational Mathematics. Is that the title? [Renz: Uh-huh.] And Kraitchik’s book on mathematical recreation—another classic, in English. And then Kasner and Newman did a marvelous job of popularizing modern mathematics in their Mathematics and the Imagination; that’s not so much recreational math although they have some in it. But it’s just a very exciting and well-written survey of certain aspects of modern mathematics which were made clear to the reader, and I think that was a very enlightening book. And there are quite a number of others: Honsberger has written two books called Mathematical Gems that I think are excellent.

Albers: He’s doing a column for us, too.

Gardner: For who?

Albers: For The Two-Year College Mathematics Journal. [Gardner: Oh, really?] Called “Mathematical Gems.”

Gardner: Uh-huh. Oh, very good.

Graham: He has a third book: Mathematical Morsels.

Albers: And a fourth one in preparation.

Gardner: Oh, really. I didn’t know about that.

Graham: Yeah, Morsels now is out.

Albers: Mathematical Plums is on the way.

Renz: We’re going to continue in this gastronomic way?

Gardner: Yeah. Uh-huh.

Albers: If we as teachers are involved, in a way, in an on-going public relations effort with our students, what advice can you give to teachers of mathematics to make the subject more interesting, to have them leave the classroom with warm feelings about the subject?

Gardner: Well, I can only repeat what I’ve said before in some of the introductions to some of my collections, and that is, I’ve always felt that if a teacher can introduce what I call recreational math—and I’m defining it in the very broad sense to include anything that has a spirit of play about it—that I don’t know of any better way to hook the interests of the students than to throw in this kind of material. And I think that up until a few years ago the teachers were sort of unacquainted with the whole field of recreational mathematics, and now I think they’re beginning to discover that it does have pedagogical value. And the proof of it is that Mathematics Teacher Magazine, for example, is running more and more articles in the field of recreational math. And successful textbooks like Jacobs’ Mathematics: A Human Endeavor, published by Freeman, are heavily loaded with recreation. And writers like Donald Knuth, who wrote a marvelous new book about computer programming; you’ll notice that he throws in as much recreational material as he can. And so I think this is a rapidly developing approach, and I think you can do a lot in a couple of years. Because if they don’t make mathematics to a certain degree “fun” to those first coming to it, the students are so bored that they get turned off by the topic, especially if the teachers are dull teachers.

Albers: Do you think that will sell better than the “applications” bandwagon that people are trotting out now? Everyone is talking applications, applications, applications.

Gardner: Well, no. I think the two should go together. And I think that’s a big part of it, too. And the two should somehow be combined. I certainly don’t think that a teacher should spend all the time on puzzles and recreational math, of course; then the whole thing will become trivial. But the applications— If the math can be applied somehow that’s useful in the child’s experience and things can be introduced so they’re challenging and have a play aspect, why, I think the two sort of go together. And, of course, we’re entering a revolution now in which everybody’s going to own a pocket computer and a programmable computer. And so this is another important aspect of the whole thing. And the kids love to work things out on a programmable computer. So I think that if the applications in math and the recreational aspects of math are tied in with computer programming then that will do a lot to get to the students.

Barcellos: You’ve had occasion, writing your column and working on puzzles and the like, over the past twenty-five years to be an observer of what’s going on in mathematics and math education. You mentioned the advent of pocket calculators and the revolution they should be, and apparently are, creating. What changes have you noticed over that particular time in mathematical tastes and interests?

Gardner: Well, there’s certainly a tremendous interest now in computer games. And especially games that can be played on a scope that is tied up to the computer; and I think that’s a very rapidly developing field, especially as the programmable computers are coming down in price. And, as you probably know, this is the big trend in modern games. The big field in games now is no longer the board game, played with counters on a board. All the games that are selling very well now are electronic games that involve some type of computer. And so I think that this is a rapidly developing field. And more and more books are coming out on computer game playing. Well, what else can I say about it? At the same time it is true that a lot of students are forgetting how to do ordinary arithmetic.

Barcellos: I guess this is where we ask you about the New Math and let you speak your piece on it.

Gardner: Yeah. And that’s unfortunate, and, of course, if— That’s one of the dangers of having a pocket calculator, is that you forget how to do ordinary arithmetic. And I suppose it’ll all work itself out. But I had this brought home to me very recently. I had a problem in a column a month or so ago; I had a collection of short columns and one of the problems was to arrange the integers in such away that the first two numbers were divisible by two, and the first three numbers divisible by three, and the first four numbers divisible by four, and so on until the final number was divisible by nine; and you were to use the nine positive integers. And it has a unique solution. And I have received, I think, now about between two or three hundred letters from readers that all say that “I read that it had a unique solution, but I have found two more.” And then they all list the same two “solutions,” and none of them have the first eight digits divisible by eight. And this had me enormously puzzled, until suddenly I realized what had happened, and that is that they were all using small pocket calculators that had an eight-digit read-out. And so they got as far as eight, and When they divided by eight it didn’t show any remainder so they went off— [Laughter] And I have hundreds of letters from readers who say “What about these two numbers?” And they all list the same two numbers and not one of them bothered to divide by eight by hand. And, of course, I have a little piece coming out in the column about it, a little paragraph pointing out that there’s a simple divisibility rule: that if the last three digits of a number is divisible by eight, why, so is the number. And none of them knew that, which means that no one has taught them divisibility rules during basic arithmetic; otherwise, they could have divided by eight very quickly. But that’s an example that brought home to me how easy it is to rely on a pocket calculator and not do any work at all.

Albers: Well, make a mistake in this case.

Gardner: Yeah, in this case they even wrote a letter about it without bothering to do the division by hand. And apparently, and without even being aware that their pocket calculator didn’t show a remainder if they were dividing an eight-digit number by eight.

Albers: Hmm. How is that going to get sorted out in the—?

Gardner: I don’t know. I think in the long run though it’s going to turn out the pocket calculator is a blessing rather than otherwise, because it does free one from the drudgery of doing ordinary arithmetic. And if the students are interested in math at all, why, it’ll help more than it slows them.

Barcellos: By now you probably have, well, you’ve seen many open questions in mathematics, and I was wondering if you had a small collection, a select group, of open problems you would really like to know the answers to. Are there some specific questions that have seized your imagination, you would really like to know the answers to?

Gardner: Well, yes. Of course, there are a lot in every field of mathematics—that are open questions. Nothing comes to mind right now as the outstanding one. Ogilvy wrote a rather interesting little book about it, one called Tomorrow’s Math, dealing entirely with unsolved problems in math. And, of course, Ulam’s little book on problems contains all kinds of unsolved problems.

Albers: But would you urge him to get that reprinted?

Renz: How about a new book?

Albers: Or a new one.

Gardner: Yeah, or a new one.

Albers: Yeah.

Graham: He’s working on it, right?

Ulam: Yeah.

Gardner: Oh, very good. Ogilvy finally did a revision of his book. The second edition came out and is updated and it reports on problems that had been solved since the first book came out. But, oh, yes, there are problems all over the place that are unsolved; and some of them are very simple to state.

Barcellos: Peter reminded me before we started this discussion that you started out, and, in fact, still are, a writer principally; and at the present time you write mainly about mathematics, recreational mathematics. But you’ve ventured apart from that; for instance, Fads and Fallacies. And you’ve even tried your hand at a novel. Are you Peter Fromm?

Gardner: Well, you must be one of the thirteen people who read that novel.

Barcellos: Oh, it must be fourteen now; Sherman told me it was thirteen last week.

Gardner: Oh, I see. Well, yes, basically that’s sort of an autobiographical piece. And I never went to theological school and Peter Fromm has a different personality [Barcellos: Right.] from myself, but basically the novel is about the changes that I went through when I was a freshman and sophomore in college. Because I came from a family that was orthodox Protestant family in Tulsa—especially my mother, a rather devout Methodist. So— And Tulsa is the fundamentalist capital of the world, home of Oral Roberts and so on. So I went through a Protestant fundamentalist stage when I was in high school, and I quickly got over it in college. And so I drew on that experience when I wrote the novel. But you’re right, the stages that Peter goes through in that novel are sort of roughly the way I thought myself out of the situation. So in that sense it’s autobiographical.

Albers: So there was a dramatic shift there in moving from high school to college. In high school you were still thinking about doing physics seriously and continuing with the mathematics that would be needed to do physics, and yet when you went to Chicago you did not enroll in a freshman math course, if I understood you correctly.

Gardner: That’s true, I didn’t. Well, there really wasn’t much opportunity to in the first two years. Because when I was in Chicago they had just instituted what they called the “New Plan” under Hutchins; and the idea was for the student to get a general liberal education the first two years, and so there really wasn’t a chance to take any introductory math courses. You had a little math that was part of your science courses, and professors of math would come in and lecture as part of that theory. So the first chance to really take a math course would have been the third year, and by that time, why, I had decided to major in philosophy, so I concentrated in that area. But that was— The other big change was, of course, that I got over my Protestant orthodoxy in college. I finally got it all off my chest in that novel.

Barcellos: Was that the purpose of the novel, just to express it, even though no one apparently is much listening to it?

Gardner: Well, yeah, actually I really, when I started out freelancing, I started out writing fiction and that was what I most wanted to do. And when I got out of the Navy and went back to Chicago, I had been in public relations work before the Navy and—at the University of Chicago—and the only reason I didn’t take my old job back was that I sold a short story to Esquire magazine. And this was followed by a series of stories, so I was supporting myself for about the first two years, ‘46 and ‘47, by selling fiction to Esquire. And I had about a dozen stories published in the magazine. It was during that period really that I wrote the first draft of this novel, and I found it to be totally unsalable. And so I just put the thing on the shelf, and it was when Bill Kauffman, who had formerly been with W. H. Freeman, came out to see me one day and asked me if I had any manuscripts lying around that I thought of this thing; and I pulled it out and let him see it. It was in pretty rough shape and it had been written, oh, twenty years earlier. And he said he would publish it if I revised it. So that’s how that got published, an old novel that I had written way back in my youth. And then I just rewrote it, and sort of updated it.

Albers: Do you have another one in the works?

Gardner: No, no, I don’t. The only book that I have in the works that is different from what I’ve been writing is that I want to do a book of philosophical essays that will just deal with various problems in contemporary philosophy. And again, it’s the sort of book that probably will not sell very well; but Knopf said they would probably publish if they saw the first few chapters, so I’m roughing out now about the first five chapters of that. And that’s the next major project that I would like to do.

Albers: What kind of writing program do you have? Do you discipline yourself to so many hours per day, in working on columns and various books?

Gardner: No, I don’t have any rigorous schedule. I just put in the equivalent, I suppose, of about a typical eight days’ work writing. The only thing is that if I take a day off it doesn’t have to be on the weekend, it can be in the middle of the week—a very flexible schedule. I don’t have any set hours that I sit down and work. I work when I can find the time.

Barcellos: I’ve been hearing things suggesting that you might not be writing the column for Scientific American the—

Gardner: Well, that’s true. I’ll be sixty-five in October and eligible for retirement benefits. Even though I contribute on a free-lance basis, I’m actually considered on the staff of the magazine, so I’m eligible for their health benefits, retirement benefits, and so on. So I have an option to resign from the column in October, and I also have an option to continue it; in other words, it’s not a forced retirement. And I just haven’t made up my mind yet. And I don’t know quite how to work it out, because if I could stop doing the column I would have time to do books that I would like to do and that otherwise I can’t do. For example, this book of philosophical essays, I’ve been trying to work on that for the past two or three years, and I seem to get to work on it about two days a month, and at that rate I’ll never finish it.

Barcellos: Well, I believe Scientific American might have some qualms about letting the column evaporate. Would—?

Gardner: Oh, they would continue the column, and they’ve asked me to continue, and I don’t know quite how to work it out. I think that my only suggestion was to have—that it might be good to have it replaced by a column that would emphasize computer recreation, because that’s a really growing field. But I don’t know who would be a good person to do that. And then there might be a compromise in which maybe I would do, alternate, columns with somebody who would alternate columns more on the computer side. Because the whole computer field is breaking very, very rapidly, and it’s a field that I don’t know too much about. And that would—I wouldn’t even be competent to do the kind of column that I think ought to be done in that field. I mean it should be done by someone trained in computer science and knows how to take recreational-type problems and games, and program, and so on. Up until now I don’t think it would have had a big readership, but I’m thinking that it would have in the next four or five years. And that’s the only thought I’ve had on it.

Albers: I’d hate to be in Scientific American's boots when it comes to trying to find a successor to Martin Gardner, and that raises another question of sorts. From what you said you kind of drifted into doing this column, and I wonder [Gardner: That’s right.] if, now that a few years have passed, you might have done anything differently. You know, the traditional, “How would you do it if you could do it over again?”

Gardner: Oh, I don’t have any regrets about doing the column, because I’ve enjoyed every column that I’ve written. And also the success of the column has made it possible for me to sell books in other fields that I don’t think I could have sold otherwise. So it’s just a question of whether I want to go on for the next ten years writing the same kind of thing, or whether I shouldn’t at this point stop the column and get into the things that I want to write while I still have my wits about me.

Ulam: If I may interrupt, I will say that’s almost an hour about mathematics but we could spend another hour dealing from your—about the other marvelous things you’ve done in physics, relativity, articles and books, and also Annotated Alice, and so on. That is entirely different. You haven’t mentioned it yourself. That’s marvelous.

Gardner: No, but I would like to do more books of that sort, too. And it’s just very, very difficult to do them and keep the column going. And each year the column gets more and more difficult, in a way, to do because my correspondence on it increases.

Barcellos: Do you do it all yourself? Do you have any assistants?

Gardner: No. I do it all myself. My wife proofs it for me. That— I guess that helps. She’s a very good proofreader, so she does check it over for grammatical errors and spelling and things like that. And otherwise, I, no, I’m— I type fast; I was a yeoman in the Navy.

Renz: You did yeoman service.

Gardner: Yes, so it’s faster for me to type than to dictate anything, so I do all my own typing.

Albers: Excuse me for breaking in here. My students are waiting for me. [Barcellos: Yes, Don.] And I will step out and just let me say on behalf of the Journal how delighted I am that you’ve been willing to talk with us, Martin.

Gardner: Oh, well, thank you very much.

Albers: Bye-bye. Thanks all of you.

Barcellos: Thank you, Don.

Gardner: So long.

Barcellos: I think that as a novice interviewer with such a good backup here, with Graham and Ulam—and Peter’s still on the line—that I should circulate around, Ulam did mention your other projects, and I have this one question here: What are your greatest interests apart from math? I’d like to know what the other people here on the line would like you to mention or speak on before we wrap this up.

Operator: This is Menlo switchboard. Dr. Albers’ line has hung up. Are you still speaking with him?

Barcellos: No. You may turn his line off.

[End; Side 2]

Renz: I think Stan’s last remark turned the conversation, the interview, in a good direction. And I think that for your readers it would be nice to mention these other things that Martin has done. I think I have a list of some of them.

Gardner: Well, The Annotated Alice, of course, does tie in with math because Lewis Carroll was, as you know, a professional mathematician, and that was why I— And as you know mathematicians are all into Alice books because of all the mathematical references. So it wasn’t really too far afield from recreational math because the two books are filled with all kinds of mathematical jokes. So I was lucky there in that I really didn’t have anything new to say much in The Annotated Alice, because I just looked over the literature and pulled together everything in the form of footnotes in the book. But it was a lucky idea because that’s been the best seller of all my books. It far outsold any book that I’ve done on any other topic. And it’s surprising. I really don’t know quite who buys it, but for the last four or five years it’s been selling each year better than the previous year.

Barcellos: I have one.

Gardner: Yeah.

Renz: So you’re saying— I think, I think we have one at home. I’m sure I do. Yeah. My wife bought it.

Gardner: And it’s funny because it’s not an original book. It’s just a set of annotations of two books by Lewis Carroll.

Renz: Let’s see, and you annotated The Snark? Is that right, too?

Gardner: Yeah, and I later did The Snark, but that didn’t do too well. However, Bill Kauffman is bringing out a new edition of that, hopefully, this year.

Barcellos: And The Annotated Casey at the Bat, what prompted that?

Gardner: Oh, well, I have always been interested in the fact that there are poems that are not great poetry, but that seem to outlast the entire poetic output of poets that are very famous in their day, and, I guess, the best term for them is popular verse. They don’t pretend to be great poems, in the sense of a poem by Keats, for example; and yet a single poem written by an individual like Thayer, who wrote Casey at the Bat—and that was the only poem he wrote that was of any value; he wrote other poems, humorous poems, too, but none of them are remembered. And yet here is a poem that goes on and on and on, and everybody knows about it, and it’s created almost a mythology and will probably be remembered after everybody’s forgotten every poem ever written by, say, Ezra Pound. And so this has always struck me as a very curious phenomenon: that a poet could write one poem, one single poem, and the poem would go galloping down through the ages, and everyone would memorize it and remember it even though it had no great value as poetry. So I did an article about this that I sold to Sports Illustrated. That was how it started: I did an article on the history of Casey at the Bat. I was just curious to know who Thayer was, and I found it a fascinating story. And after that appeared it occurred to me that I might put together an anthology or sequels to Casey. And so that’s what the book is. It’s a collection of the original poem with sequels by various other people like Grantland Rice, the sportswriter, and so on. And then I annotated all the poems with sort of fake annotations to sort of tie them all together in a connected story. And the book is done as a kind of a joke. That didn’t sell too well either.

Renz: How about things in physics like your Ambidextrous Universe?

Gardner: Well, The Ambidextrous Universe was great fun to write, and I’m happy to say that Scribners is bringing it out in a new edition this month with four new chapters. Because when the book came out all the work on time-reversal was too late for me to catch, so the original book doesn’t have anything in it about the recent work that’s been done on time symmetry. So this gave me a chance to write four new chapters that deal with speculation about time-reversed galaxies and that sort of thing, and that’s— It’s off the press, but not officially published yet, and I have no idea how they’re doing it.

Barcellos: How about the magic?

Gardner: Well, it’s just been a minor hobby of mine ever since I was a boy. I never did anything professionally with it. I’ve always been interested in the field. I’ve written some books that sell only in magic stores. It just happens to be my hobby, like juggling is for Ron Graham.

Barcellos: You are affiliated with a group of mathematicians, magicians, scientists, who are debunkers, right?

Gardner: Yes, we have an organization called Committee for the Investigation of the Paranormal, and we publish a magazine called [Barcellos: Zetetic?] Skeptical Inquirer. No, it started out with the name Zetetic and changed its name to The Skeptical Inquirer. And there have been about three or four issues of that that have already appeared. Hopefully, it’s going to be a quarterly; it first came out twice a year. And I don’t know how well it’s doing. The idea was to put out a magazine that would try to tell the other side of the story, and so that it would be something that editors and TV management could turn to if they wanted to find out how the scientific community felt about something.

Barcellos: What is the initial response? Is it encouraging?

Gardner: Yes, I think so. I think that the membership of the committee has been growing and the circulation of the magazine has been increasing. It’s being very well edited by Ken Frazier, who used to be the editor of Science News magazine. And I think it’s doing very well considering the fact that it’s only about a year or so old and we haven’t had too much publicity about it.

Barcellos: I think I know, but let me ask you. [Gardner: Yeah.] What do mathematicians— What do magicians do in the organization? Why would magicians be interested in this?

Gardner: Well, because right now so many parapsychologists are being taken in by psychics that are just simply magicians in disguise; and the outstanding example, of course, is Uri Geller, who in the opinion—in my opinion, and the opinion of almost every magician who has studied Uri Geller—Uri Geller is nothing more than just a magician who is pretending to be a psychic. But the climate of opinion is such that a lot of top parapsychologists—like Bier[?] in their work and so on—have taken Uri very seriously. And a lot of physicists who are into parapsychology, like Puthoff and Targ at SRI, for example, took Geller very seriously. And there’s really a rather surprising number of rather top, top physicists who are quite convinced that the kind of psychic phenomena that Uri produces is really genuine. There’s Costa de Beauregard, a quantum mechanics expert in France, and Josephson who won a Nobel prize for his work on the tunneling effect, who is into this field; Gerald Feinberg at Columbia. These are all really top physicists, and every single one of them thought Geller was a genuine psychic. And so you need— The people who are working in this field are very naive and have no understanding of magic whatever. And what our committee is really saying is that before you go overboard and write articles and books about this kind of psychic phenomena, at least have the sense to consult a magician and get him in as an observer, so that you don’t make a fool out of yourself. And, of course, the outstanding example of a man who did make a real ass out of himself is John Taylor, the mathematical physicist from England, who fell for Geller and wrote this gigantic book called Superminds, all about the young kids in England who bent spoons the way Geller does. And he fell totally for Uri’s magic without any knowledge whatever on how Uri could have accomplished it by conjuring methods. And, of course, he finally was convinced that he was taken in and now he has retracted his whole position in an article in Nature in which he, in effect, says that he was wrong.

Barcellos: I don’t see the evidence that Geller has been discredited in the public mind. Do you think that he’s out of favor with the scientific community in general now? Is there anyone—?

Gardner: I think Geller is very much out of favor even among the parapsychologists right now. I think it’s finally filtered through to them that the guy is a magician. And I don’t know of any major parapsychologist today who takes him seriously.

Renz: What about the mathematical side, so to speak, of this parapsychological research? Certainly Persi Diaconis’ recent article and others have tackled [Gardner: Yeah.] this. It seems to me there are very substantial, interesting problems even beyond that of detecting outright fraud.

Gardner: Yeah, that’s right. All in all there are all kinds of fascinating problems involved in the statistical aspects of the work that they’re doing. By the way, I have a column coming up in a couple of months on magic and parapsychology, in reference to the piece you said Ron did with Persi [Graham: Uh-huh.], referring to the Stanford Technical Report bibliography and Persi’s Science article. So I’m going to do a column that will sort of discuss this whole aspect of contemporary parapsychology, and the need for a more sophisticated understanding of some of the statistics involved.

Renz: How was your original Puthoff and Targ column received? Did that stir up—? Did you get a lot of mail on that?

Gardner: No, not particularly. I think most of my readers were on my side there. I got some angry letters from parapsychologists, especially from Puthoff who was very—

Renz: He was somewhat put off. [Laughter]

Gardner: Right! Absolutely. He didn’t like it at all. But, I don’t know, the forces that are involved in making the public interested in this field are so deep, deep-seated, that articles on the other side seem to have almost no effect. So I really don’t know how well the skeptical side is doing. I just really can’t say.

Renz: Just to cheer you up, I noticed that some national poll indicated that something like 70 percent of all high school students interviewed believed that ESP was a proven fact.

Gardner: Absolutely, there’s no question about it. [Laughter] I mean, that most people believe that. And they really— If you try to tell them that 99 percent of the professional psychologists around the country take an opposite position, they can’t believe it. And it’s an example of how successful the campaign has been in the public media as compared with the efforts of the psychologists themselves to get their view across. They see these pseudo-documentaries on NBC, for example, in which these things are treated as though they’re genuine scientific breakthroughs. It just never occurs to them that the professional psychologists have a totally different attitude.

Renz: Do you feel that programs like—what is that thing?—is it “In Search Of,” or something? [Yeah.] Is it that they really are seriously undermining public understanding in these areas, or seriously misleading people?

Gardner: Well, I think they are. Of course, our committee has had a number of conferences with some executives at NBC, and their claim is that they’re simply responding to public interest. And I’m sure that they’re right; I mean, they’re going to do programs that are going to get high ratings. But then you get this feedback in operation, and that is when they respond to public interest with programs like the ones that they’ve been putting on, especially the one narrated by, one was narrated by Burt Lancaster [“Exploring the Unknown,” (1977)], for example, which was one of the worst.

Barcellos: What was that on?

Gardner: Oh, it was a documentary on all the new big breakthroughs in psychic phenomena, the Philippines and the surgeons in the Philippines, and all that. [Barcellos: Oh, my.] With pictures of them operating and taking parts out of the body without cutting the skin—that was one of the worst sections of the show—and all narrated by Burt Lancaster as though these were serious scientific breakthroughs. And they’ve done several, they’ve presented several documentaries of a similar sort with some famous movie star doing the narration. And so this— The public, of course, demands such films, but then when they’re produced, why, it just increases the demand and increases the belief on the part of the general public who are isolated from the science community. And I think it’s damaging to American education and damaging to American science.

Barcellos: Is there anything to do besides continuing to complain?

Gardner: I don’t know. I really don’t know what can be done about it except the occasional articles by people like Sagan who present the other side and the existence of our magazine which is now available to editors; and hopefully, if the magazine comes out. Leon Jaroff is a member of our committee, by the way, and feels very strongly about this whole thing, so it not only will be, in contrast to Omni, completely free from any emphasis on the paranormal, but Leon may even have a department devoted to giving the skeptic side of current paranormal topics.

Graham: Perhaps “Nova” should do something on public television.

Gardner: Well, it would be good. I think there is plenty of room for programs like that. And occasionally there are programs like that. There was one very good documentary on the Bermuda Triangle from the skeptical point of view that I think “Nova” did. And I thought it was very effective. But it’s very hard to get the major networks to back such programs or to get funding for them because the public is interested in the other side of the story.

Renz: So you would say that the PBS programs or your column on Puthoff and Targ’s work and so on, these are essentially preaching to the converted, or all the skeptical—should we say?—the already skeptical. [Gardner: Yeah.] And therefore that’s not as constructive as you would hope, although I certainly think your article on Puthoff and Targ, your column on Puthoff and Targ, was superb—the best kind of thing we hope for.

Gardner: Well, one program that hopefully will get off the ground in a year or two is the Children’s Workshop Theater. They’re the ones who produce “Sesame Street.” And they have finally gotten funding for a program dealing with science for children; and this will be a daily program and they’re working on it now. And I think that the people who are involved are going to be very careful to keep pseudoscience out of the program, and present it from the other point of view. And if they can do a very successful children’s program on science, I think that would be very effective.

Renz: Have you any interest in contributing, or consulting?

Gardner: Well, I was involved in some of the meetings. Phil Morrison and I were invited to some discussion groups about the program a year or so ago, about the shape it’s going to take. I wasn’t able to go to the last one. So I’m sort of involved as kind of an advisor, and I’m hoping that it’s going to be free of pseudoscience, although one of the advisors present at the meeting was the dean of the engineering school at Princeton University—a man named Jahn, J-A-H-N—and to everybody’s surprise he has suddenly become a new convert to parapsychology; and he has had a big article on his replication of the [Barcellos: Oh, my.] mind-viewing, remote-viewing experiments of Puthoff and Targ that ran in, of all things, the Princeton alumni magazine a few months ago. And the latest news is that Honorton, Charles Honorton, a top parapsychologist at Maimonides, he’s getting most of his funds from an elderly individual named McDonnell—not of MacDonald hamburgers. He owns a chain of fried chicken stores, I think, around the country, and a very wealthy man. He’s in his eighties. And he gave a whopping sum of money to Honorton, and he’s leaving Maimonides and—and teaming up with Dr. Jahn at Princeton; and they’re going to have a parapsychology laboratory in the engineering school at Princeton.

Barcellos: That must be a bit discouraging.

Gardner: So that’s a little discouraging. And Jahn is one of the major advisors to the Children’s Workshop Theater. So I don’t know how that’s going to work out.

Renz: Well, we’ll certainly expect to see some good effects. [Laughter] Let’s see, are there— We’ve been— Are there any things that we’ve failed to bring up?

Barcellos: I’ve gone through my entire list, Peter. I don’t know if Stan or Ron has something more that—

Graham: I think we’ve covered quite a spectrum here.

Renz: Well, I guess I was really asking Martin if there was something that—

Gardner: Well, I wanted to ask you something, Peter. Has this new Mersenne prime been verified?

Graham: Lehmer has not yet checked it. [Gardner: Oh.] But they were scheduled to hold— This is 23209, for the exponent. [Gardner: Yeah.] They had scheduled a [Gardner: Right.] press conference last week. That is, Curt Noll had called up and said he wanted one, but the press canceled it and said it would be held next Thursday, which is, I guess, tomorrow. And Lehmer hadn’t had the chance to verify it. I think his total computer budget right now is fifty dollars—and it doesn’t go far these days.

Renz: Does he need contributions?

Graham: Well, so he’ll verify it, I think, in the same way. I don’t think Tuckerman has verified it although—

Renz: Yeah, Tuckerman’s evidently not free to do so, or something like that.

Graham: Well, he did the other one although at first he said he wasn’t going to [Renz: He did the other one?], but then he did. [Gardner: Uh-huh.] But Lehmer just gets some of the output near the end and then continues it to see that it works out.

Gardner: I see.

Renz: Checks the last few stages.

Gardner: I see.

Graham: Yeah. Yeah.

Gardner: So that’s not really definite yet.

Graham: Well, it hasn’t been independently verified yet.

Renz: But that program worked before.

Gardner: Uh-huh. Okay, well, I won’t report that news to any of my friends yet, till I hear that it’s verified.

Renz: Okay, we’ll drop you a card as soon as we get—

Barcellos: Well, is there anything else then we need to attend to?

Gardner: Well, I can’t think of anything.

Barcellos: Nothing to volunteer. Well, I thank you very much for your time, Martin. This has been an exquisite pleasure for me.

Gardner: Well, I’ve enjoyed the conversation and thank all of you for taking the time to be on the phone with me.

Barcellos: We’re glad that you took the time to be with us.

Gardner: Yeah.

Ulam: I beat my own record by a factor of five, or four. [Laughter]

Graham: Okay.

Gardner: All right.

Graham: Okay, well, I’ll probably see you in the next month or two.

Gardner: Okay, Ron, very good.

Graham: Okay.

Gardner: So, so long everybody.

Barcellos: All right, good-bye. Thank you very much, Martin.

Gardner: Bye-bye.

[End of Interview]

Party of the century (2010 version)

2010-04-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Eric Butow: My meds have kicked in and I'm feeling no pain. Has the party started yet?

Wei-Jen Harrison: The mysterious Orient has curative techniques that vastly exceed the power of mere drugs. I can tell you the secret!

She appears to be whispering it in his ear. Amazing! His endorphin levels seem elevated already!

Jim Walker warms up the crowd by sharing a witty joke with Andrew Hansen and Phil Smith.

Phil gets it! The evening is off to a good start.

Kandace Knudsen: Look out, folks. Those guys behind me can't be up to any good.

It seems that Kandace has a point.

Tony Barcellos: Take a word of advice from your senior colleague, boys. Always look high for your goals!

Brandon Muranaka: How high? I don't see any!

Brandon continues his quest for wisdom. He consults with Peter Horton, Jane de León, and Ted Ridgway.

Brandon: Tony says things are looking up, but I'm confused.

Ted: This is a well-known byproduct of talking with Tony.

Jane: Oh, tell me about it!

Peter H: Won't your eyeballs get stuck if you keep rolling them up like that?

Peter Faure: Look, Pamela is a nurse, okay? I know all there is to know about the dangers of fatty foods and fried appetizers, okay? Just learn to accept that I am the boss and I can do what I want. Got it?

Peter F: Oh, hello, dear! I was just warning these nice people about the unhealthy appetizers. These are just for demonstration purposes.

Pamela Faure: I know, Peter. I heard. You have a bit of dipping sauce on your beard, sweetheart.

Nancy Reitz: No, really, Ted. It's like those years when you were department chair are the good old days.

Ted: That's funny. These years right now when I'm not department chair seem like the good old days.

Wei-Jen: Oh, look, another big strong man in the room! How women must flock to you!

Tim Feldman: That's okay. I'm used to it.

David Tribble: Say, you guys are new this year, aren't you?

Glee Johnson: Yes, it's our first time.

David T: I've been to several. I keep hoping that one of them will be a good one.

Greg Geeting: Maybe you have a slight learning disability. Are you perchance one of Tony's students?

Dog1 (Cowan): Hey, I like your outfit.

Dog2 (Gage): It kills me that we wore the same thing.

Eileen Hyland: If we sit down, maybe the dinner can get started.

Tony: Good luck. I've been sitting here for half an hour and nobody's noticed.

Aileen McGarry: Yeah, it's true. Blondes do glow in the dark. And I'm not even lit yet!

Glee: I'm not used to dinner parties dominated by math professors.

Wei-Jen: Wait till we take it to infinity!

Hostess: We can't get dinner started until everyone is sitting down.

Phil: I'm doing the strong, silent thing. Looking good!

Tony: How much is this going to cost me?

Hostess: Hey, you're the chump who went for a hosted bar!

Eileen: I think they may be having more fun at the other table.

Ted: Why did Tony put me next to an English professor?

Kandace: Why did Tony put me next to a math professor? And does Ted really want me to help him with a math joke?

Ted: Hey, look, Tony! It's five and nine!

Kandace: Yeah, Tony. It's how old you are!

Ted: No, it actually adds up to 14. That's Tony's mental age.

Peter H: Wow. Jane has to work with these people on a daily basis. Explains a lot.

Ted: Got to keep the ball rolling. What's another good math joke?

Benjamin: It's true. I skipped high school and I'm one of Tony's former students.

Socorro Tril: Oh, you poor thing, you!

Pamela: No, it's true. Peter has my complete permission to tell people he's the boss.

Sandy McKaig: Not to change the subject, but I'm training a dog as a companion animal.

Pamela: You're not really changing the subject.

Peter H: You know, if I wore a hearing aid I could turn it down. Worse luck.

Although unaccustomed to wine or strong drink, Wei-Jen offers a toast.

David Murray: So that's really the secret of the universe?

Alan Willendrup: No kidding. At least, that's what Wei-Jen said.

Alan: I'm not sure he's buying it.

Tony: Let the ritual reading of the birthday cards begin!

Peter F: It's just an excuse for a speech.

Phil: He stuffed our guts, now it's time to stuff our ears.

Tim: He'll tell the same jokes as last year. I just know it.

Tony: Your card says my fondest wish will come true tonight.

Richard Katz: No doubt about it, but you must open the package that came with the card.

Tony: A life-size portrait of Richard! My dreams have indeed come true!

Eric: To think that we were privileged to be here on this occasion!

Jane: Oh, Tony is going to tell a joke!

Maria Feldman: Better brace yourself!

Jane: Oh, dear. I can't believe he said that!

Maria: Ha! Saw it coming a mile away!

Tony: Keep passing the cards along, gentlemen.

Richard: None of these are as funny as mine!

Rob Roy Woodman: Not all of us have faces as suited for humor as you do, Richard.

Andrew: I think they put me at the kids' table by mistake.

Wei-Jen takes advantage of the confusion in the room to strike her significant other's dinner companion.

Wei-Jen: Vengeance is mine!

Aileen: It's Tony's fault that I'm sitting next to Alan!

Aileen plays dueling cameras with an unidentified rival.

Rob Roy: I'm a highly trained psychologist, so it's all right if I make funny faces at the camera. Not as funny as Richard's, of course, but I try. There's a reason I never miss these dinners.

Rachel Rosenthal: Hey, look, Melissa. He's pointing the camera at someone other than Wei-Jen!

Melissa Green: It's about time!

Nancy: I'm Tony's boss in the math department.

Greg: You have my sympathies. I could tell you how he terrorized our boss at the Commission on State Finance.

Steve Rosenthal: Every year we get more proof that age and maturity have very little to do with each other. (Will it be a math joke if I say "QED" now? Better ask Rachel.)

Dan Kehew applies to dessert the acquisition skills that brought the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame to Davis.

Some secret admirer photographs Phil's butt as a souvenir.

The End

Senator Albert S. Rodda, 1912-2010

2010-04-05T14:00:00.000-07:00

One of the great men of California politics died on Saturday, April 3, 2010, at the age of 97. Albert S. Rodda was dedicated to public service, especially in the field of education. News of his death has been spreading through the wide network of old Rodda hands, the countless people who knew Albert as a teacher (Grant High School, Sacramento City College, Sacramento State University), a college trustee (Los Rios Community College District), a legislator (California State Senate), or fiscal watchdog (Commission on State Finance).

The Senator's memorial services are pending. The family will be announcing arrangements by means of a Facebook page (see the link in the sidebar on the right). A detailed biographical sketch of Sen. Rodda, which is only slightly out of date since I posted it in 2007, can be found here.

Sauerkraut in the Bee

2010-01-11T10:00:00.000-08:00

On January 2, 2010, the Sacramento Bee published a Charles Krauthammer column under the title Obama denial of jihadists' war is absurd. It was mostly a column about words. Krauthammer is upset that the president doesn't use the words he prefers. Here are some pertinent excerpts:

Obama banishes the term "war on terror." It's over—that is, if it ever existed.

Obama referred to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as "an isolated extremist."

More jarring still were Obama's references to the terrorist as a "suspect" who "allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device."

Any government can through laxity let someone slip through the cracks. But a government that refuses to admit we are at war, indeed, refuses even to name the enemy—jihadist is a word banished from the Obama lexicon—turns laxity into a governing philosophy.

My letter on Krauthammer's intemperate column was published in the Bee on January 6.

Vitriol displaces logic
Re "Obama denial of jihadists' war is absurd" (Viewpoints, Jan. 2): Each year The Bee gets a little smaller. What editorial strabismus causes the newspaper to consider Charles Krauthammer worthy of any of the remaining space? In his intemperate denunciation of the Obama administration, Krauthammer dispenses with all forms of reason and logic in favor of undiluted vitriol.
He's terribly upset that would-be Christmas bomber Abdulmutallab is being treated as a criminal under the rule of law instead of being "vanished" into some secret torture cell. I seem to have missed Krauthammer's similar denunciations of the Bush administration for trying and convicting would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid for a nearly identical terrorist act.
He even objects to the president's use of the word "extremist" to characterize Abdulmutallab, as if that's not a fitting description for someone who sets off a bomb in his underwear. Krauthammer insists on the label "jihadist" because it blames the religion of Islam instead of the responsible individuals. He seems to care more about words than action.
Krauthammer is the quintessential political shill who tears his hair when Democrats do things and cheers when Republicans do the very same things. His commentary is worthless and predictable. The Bee should find someone else to fill his space.
—Anthony Barcellos, Davis

Karin Jones of Carmichael was quick to ignore the point of my letter and raised the specter of censorship in her rebuttal of January 11:

Love or hate him, let him speak
Re "Vitriol displaces logic" (Letters, Jan. 6): Remarkable, another letter writer bemoans the fact that The Bee prints a column written by a conservative, in this case targeting Charles Krauthammer. Why is it that liberals and progressives want to stifle all opposing views and voices? Aren't they supposed to be oh so open-minded and tolerant?
I personally despise Paul Krugman, and I disagree with all his views, but I would never ask The Bee to discontinue printing his column just because his political views are not to my liking. And even though I believe that Anthony Barcellos' letter was "worthless and predictable" (quoting his comment about Krauthammer), he had the right to express his opinion, and I have the right to express mine.
—Karin Jones, Citrus Heights

Yes, Krauthammer certainly has the right to express his opinions. He does not, however, have the right to a platform in the Bee. Furthermore, when his columns are replete with egregious inconsistencies that demonstrate he is no more than a partisan hack, the Bee is left without a valid reason for publishing him.

Party of the century (2009 version)

2009-08-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

The birthday boy and Rachel get ready to party, but don't seem to have much of an idea how to get started.

Mark and Dan are definitely up to the task of having a party.

Tom explains his theory on how to have a party to a rapt audience consisting of Nancy, while Elaine and Hannah discuss whether they've heard this theory before.

Maria and Sandy wonder if the people at the other table are having a better time, then realize any table lacking their presence cannot possibly be the better table.

Kandace and David decide to be good sports about having worn the same outfit to a dinner party.

Tony and Rachel are still not up to speed. Rachel is thinking about her missed flight connections to Italy, despite the attractiveness of West Sacramento.

Parties break out spontaneously in Erik's presence, so he's not worried that the evening might turn out to be a bust.

Brandon and Eric show Brian how to say grace before a meal, forcing Brian to demonstrate how patient he can be.

Eric explains to Brandon that the right prescription medication can save even one of Tony's dinner parties.

Tim and Maria put on their party faces. It's not a problem. They always look like this.

Ted epitomizes unrestrained glee, showing the other dinner guests how to have a good time.

Rachel is beginning to get the idea. Not much progress in Tony's case, though.

Sherman tells David he didn't know everyone was supposed to wear paisley and David decides to humor him. The camera catches the elusive Joan in the background.

Tony realizes it was a close call that he didn't wear his own La Ganga T-shirt that evening.

James and Melissa await the emergence of Erik's world-famous party-boy persona.

Erik may be ensnared in the damping effects of an anti-party field. If only the generator could be identified!

Elon keeps a watchful eye on the proceedings. Joan is nearly (but not quite!) photographed.

James and Melissa are beginning to wonder if the people at the other table are having a better time.

Elon checks whether there's room at the table between Jim and Rob.

Tony appears to be pretending to be embarrassed at some joke or supposedly witty remark he just made. It's always just pretense, of course. Erik identifies the reason his effervescence is less fizzy than usual.

The entertainment portion of the evening begins with the ritual passing of birthday cards around the tables. Rob, Brandon, Eric, and Brian partake of the hilarity.

Eric helps Brian out by explaining the punchlines on the exceedingly sophisticated birthday cards. Brian exudes gratitude—and patience.

David mugs for the camera while Sherman and Kandace check out birthday cards.

Rachel explains to a doubtful Elaine and Nancy that she can get two meals out of the leftovers from one dinner party.

Sherman and Hannah ask Elaine if she would like to pose with them.

Elaine says "yes"!

Ted gets to pretend that he's in this line-up. It's the high point of the evening for him.

Elon begins to round up people to herd them out of the room.

It turns out that Eileen was there all along, almost as elusive as Joan.

Elon checks under the tables for missing guests.

That's all, folks!

Back on the bench

2009-06-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

The Back Bench has been idle, one of those “abandoned” blogs that outnumber the ones actually being updated. I hope I'm back now. The past year was swallowed up in hectic accreditation activity at school, but things are opening up this summer. And I have something to post, too, since the San Francisco Chronicle saw fit to print my letter to the editor on June 16.

Growing nut cases

Thank you for running Signe Wilkinson's editorial cartoon (June 13) depicting the lone nut-cases sprouting from the tree of U.S. hate groups.

If, however, she hadn't chosen such a close-up, we could have seen Rush Limbaugh watering the tree while Glenn Beck spreads manure to fertilize it. Or perhaps Rush spreads the fertilizer while Glenn waters it with his tears. Same difference.

ANTHONY BARCELLOS, Davis

Brief Analysis of the 1998-99 State Budget (1998)

2008-07-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: A structural deficit in California budgeting

Although he was no longer at the center of the debate over state finances after 1980, for many years Sen. Rodda remained a keen observer of the annual budget debate at the State Capitol. These brief comments were originally typed up by the Senator himself, probably on the old IBM PC Portable that had finally replaced his trusty typewriter. Although undated, Rodda's budget analysis is clearly from the latter half of 1998, after the enactment of the budget bill.

The Senator's two hand-drawn graphs did not reproduce well (I have pale photocopies rather than originals) so I recreated them in a graphics package, adding a rather jarring modern twist. The reader will see, however, that the issue of the structural deficit in the California budget—the consistent outpacing of revenues by expenditures—is also modern, as true today as it was a decade ago.

This document appears to be the last of Sen. Rodda's budget analyses, as I have nothing more recent in my collection of the Senator's papers.

—TB

Brief Analysis of the 1998-99 State Budget (1998)

During the years from 1984-85 to 1989-90 California General Fund Expenditures averaged 6.75% of California Personal Income. The fact of reality today is that the 6.75% no longer prevails.

Personal Income is the dollar income received by the residents of the state in the form of wages, salaries, profits, rent, and interest payments. From these incomes state and local taxes and government agency fees are paid and the balance is available to the recipients for their personal use.

After payments are made for rent, food, clothing, health, transportation and similar basic needs, the income remaining, which is defined as Disposable Income, is the income which the recipients may utilize for the purchase of luxury items, or to save and invest. Only individuals experiencing fairly good incomes will enjoy the advantage of receiving Disposable Income—personal income in excess of that required to pay for necessities and government taxes and fees.

General Fund Revenues as estimated by the Department of Finance in the State Budget Presentation for 1998-99 will amount to $60.36 billion, which includes $2.5 billion carried over from the previous budget.

State Personal Income estimates have been revised and the amount has been increased for the year of 1998 from $900 billion to $918 billion. If General Funds as a percentage of Personal Income were to amount to the 6.75% of the years from 1984 through 1989, California General Fund Revenues would amount approximately to $61.95 billion. That is an amount which is about $4.1 billion greater than the current $57.8 billion projected as state revenues for the next fiscal year.

It is clear that state government revenues, despite the favorable economic situation in California for the past five years, are at a level in relation to Personal Income below that of the late eighties. If, as is probable, the state experiences a period of economic recession in the near future, the fiscal situation for the state will become even more unfavorable.

Given this condition, it seems reasonable for the state to preserve the current fiscal situation with respect to its annual General Fund Budget appropriations. The proposal being made by the Governor to initiate a phase in of a reduction in the Motor Vehicle License Fee would reduce General Fund Revenues in the amount of about $2 billion in 1998-99 and would increase to about $3.5 billion in fiscal year 2002. Such a reduction would impair the state's ability to maintain the current level of public services, which has significantly declined during the past decade, as previously noted, despite the favorable economic conditions the state has experienced during the past five years.

A negative aspect of California's fiscal situation is that General Fund Revenues are less elastic than they were prior to 1990. A revenue source is elastic if it increases annually at a more rapid rate than the annual increase in Personal Income. The current situation is one in which General Fund Revenues are tending toward a condition of inelasticity.

Of all of the state's revenues, the most elastic is the Personal Income Tax. Because of voter approval of Proposition #6, however, which indexed the Personal Income Tax. and because of the enactment of legislation to make the California Personal Income Tax conform more fully to the Federal Income Tax, the California Personal Income Tax has lost a significant amount of its elasticity. Furthermore, the repeal of the Inheritance and Gift Tax Law by voter approval of Proposition #7 has further reduced General Fund Revenue elasticity. These conditions have been aggravated by the impact of the recent enactment of tax reduction legislation.

Unfortunately, despite the improvement in the economic situation in California during the past five years, General Fund Revenues continue to increase annually at a percentage which is less than that of the state's Personal Income.

The fiscal facts are that Personal Income increased over the past seven years in an amount of approximately 64%, but state revenues during the same year increased only 34.4%. Obviously, California's tax base no longer experiences its historic level of elasticity, or an increase comparable or greater than the annual increase in the Personal Income.

The enclosed Charts indicate in a graphic way this change in the fiscal situation of the State of California.

The Rodda Project: An introduction

2007-12-01T18:30:00.000-08:00

It was my great privilege in 1979 to join the staff of state Senator Albert S. Rodda, a Democrat who represented the Sacramento region in the upper house of the California state legislature. I had been awarded a Senate Fellowship and Rodda's aides selected me from among the new cohort of Senate Fellows for a position in his office. Although it unfortunately turned out that Sen. Rodda would leave the state legislature at the end of 1980, I ended up continuing to work for him in various capacities for the next several years. When he took over in 1981 as executive officer of the California Commission on State Finance, an agency of the State Treasurer's Office, I was the only staff member from his State Capitol office who accompanied him (the others all had job offers!).

The drastic downsizing of the Senator's staff in that transition from dean of the State Senate to executive officer of a small state agency resulted in my becoming a useful thread of continuity between the old and the new, the keeper of many papers and files left over from his 22 years in the legislature. While the California State Archives has several feet of storage space dedicated to Senator Rodda's papers, my transitional role (together with my notorious pack-rat tendencies) has preserved a large and informal collection of the position papers and essays of Albert S. Rodda. With this posting, The Back Bench is inaugurating the Rodda Project, my modest effort to make available a trove of thoughts and writings from one of California's keenest participants in the policies and politics of a crucial quarter century. The Senator took office the year that Pat Brown was elected governor and he left the senate in Jerry Brown's second term. You may recall that in the middle somewhere was another governor named Ronald Reagan.

Albert Rodda focused on public education and state finance, in particular because he was a long-time faculty member at Sacramento City College, but he was involved in every major state issue during his more than two decades in office. Rodda was a remarkably self-effacing individual, especially considering that he rose to become chair of two vital senate committees, Education and Finance. However, it was always his nature to work quietly and without bombast. His writing style, as you will see from the postings to follow, had an academic bent, but he came by his scholarly tendencies honestly, having earned a Ph.D. from Stanford after his service in World War II.

The Rodda Project, by the way, is not in itself a scholarly endeavor, although I would be delighted if someday it were to inspire scholars of state politics. I will not be annotating the Senator's writings in any significant way, nor will I edit his words. I plan to limit my interventions to minor technical points, such as turning the underlined text of the Senator's typewritten papers into italics or correcting one of his exceedingly rare misspellings (not, however, “correcting” his sometimes idiosyncratic usage or word choices). When I have ready access to books or papers he directly quotes, I check the quotes for accuracy; as expected, departures from cited texts are both rare and minor. In some cases, I provide context with some introductory paragraphs.

As the Rodda Project slowly grows in content, I'll maintain and update a sidebar that will serve as a quick guide to the Senator's papers. I have no great overarching scheme in mind, although I plan to identify each document as specifically as possible. Since Sen. Rodda was very good about dating his papers and labeling them with the venue in which they were delivered (as speeches or position papers), it will be easy in most cases for me to include those labels in each post. As you can tell, these are the first tentative steps in a work in progress.

Albert Rodda is alive at the time of this writing, a frail and genteel man of 95 years who resides quietly in his home in Curtis Park, close to Sacramento City College and the campus administrative and classroom complex that bears his name.

The Christian and the Democratic Process (1967)

2007-12-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

The Rodda Project: The Christian's Role in Politics

Senator Rodda delivered this speech on January 30, 1967. His audience was the School for Christian Church and Service of First Evangelical United Church.

The Christian and the Democratic Process:
or
“What on earth are we doing about getting good government?”

In opening a discussion of this type, it might be well to quote or paraphrase a number of the world's leading thinkers who have commented upon the nature of government and, also, the meaning of democracy. In this way, perhaps, we may establish the context in which the discussion will develop.

It is my intent this evening to discuss, as clearly as I can, the meaning of the democratic, or open society, and to relate this system of government to the individual citizen, with particular reference to the Christian.

As I reflect upon the governmental process and through it the exercise of political power, I am reminded of Plato’s “Republic,” the first instance in western history in which the nature of government was examined in a substantive and rational manner. In this work, as I recall, Plato concluded after a careful analysis that the purpose of government was the achievement of justice. And I am also reminded of a comment that is alleged to have been made by Plato's student, Aristotle, and I paraphrase him, to the effect that “all governments eventually fail because of an excessive development or implementation of the basic principle upon which they are organized.”

Since our government is thought of or usually defined as a democracy, one wonders whether the observation of Aristotle will prove relevant. In effect, one wonders whether our system will fail because of an excessive development of the democratic principle or ideal upon which it is established. One's concern is heightened when one realizes that the meaning of democracy and the way in which the democratic processes of government have been developed in this country are badly understood or poorly appreciated by many citizens. Since a meaningful discussion of the citizen's role in government presumes an understanding of its essential character, I will briefly paraphrase a number of individuals who have remarked about democracy, either by way of definition or by way of a commentary.

Carl Becker, a famous American historian who is a specialist in the 18th Century, is quoted as describing “democracy is a tremendous gamble for the highest stakes.” This epigraph conveys dramatically my feeling about democracy and my own concept of its meaning. Certainly, democracy is a gamble and it must be a gamble because of the very essential idea behind it and because of the fact that its proper implementation provides no guarantee that the best interests of the people will be served or that its finest goals will be achieved, for example, the goal of justice.

Through democracy the “good world” may be realized, but not necessarily. George Bernard Shaw who remarked that democracy is that “system of government which guarantees the people what they ought to receive” focused on the essential element of the democratic process.

Through democracy the people exercise the final control over government and the uses to which governmental power may be put. This offers some assurance that government will serve good ends, but its great virtue is that if it fails, the failure will be the result of the failure of the people. Democracy guarantees, as Shaw remarked, that whatever the people experience—good or bad—it will be their doing, their responsibility; their government will be no better or worse than the people deserve. Can free men ask for more!

Despite this characteristic of the democratic system of government, the validity of democracy is being questioned and challenged today as never before. There are many who reject the verdict of Winston Churchill, who stated that “democracy was the worst possible form of government, only that it was better than any other.”

While democracy has many detractors, it also has many friends, and frequently its friends seek to rescue democracy by developing a concept of what democracy is in order to provide a norm or standard toward which we may move. Unfortunately, in most instances in which this is attempted the norms or models selected are not a true reflection of the American democratic process. To the extent that the model is an “ersatz” one, the well-meaning intentions of the friends of democracy tend to produce more confusion and, therefore, greater hazards for democracy. A few cases of “mistaken identity” may be cited.

For example, a case is made for what is described as “democracy as the American credo.” An appeal to history for legitimacy, the concept suggests that there is in existence an American creed or faith which can be extracted from the story of American history. Actually, the historical past can help us to understand the present, but it cannot provide a concrete, specific statement of democracy as a particular institution or event of yesterday, nor can it suggest what it ought to be today. The American Revolution, for example, solved only one question—the separation from Great Britain. It did not itself lead to the establishment of institutions, which by virtue of a consensus, may be looked upon as the legitimate or authentic form in which American democracy was cast and in which it should remain for perpetuity. The government which we know today actually developed out of prolonged disagreement and controversy over fundamental issues which were extremely intense in 1776 and 1789. A disagreement over basic ideals and institutions was the focus of controversy and it has carried on down to the present. It is foolish and transitory, therefore, to think that one may find in 1776, 1789 or 1865 an idealized form or model for American democracy.

Another model is that of democracy regarded as a religious faith. From this perspective it is suggested that the traditions of the Judeo-Christian religious morality provide an appropriate basis for a delineation of life upon a theistic view of the world which stands in contrast or opposition to the communistic ideal which is predicated or established upon an atheistic cosmic view. Unfortunately, the theistic model derives, also, from a misreading of American history, since American society developed out of a conviction that government could not provide a religious faith. Our society is actually founded on a commitment to provide the fullest possible freedom of expression in matters of theology and religious belief and this, therefore, is the only sense in which one can relate American democracy to Christianity or Judaism; it cannot otherwise be regarded without the risk of a crude distortion of the facts of our historical origins.

We must, it is sometimes argued, identify democracy or the democratic system of government, with capitalism. This interpretation arises from a confusion as to the distinction between the economic and political institutions of our country. Capitalism defines or describes the basic institutions we have developed for the production and distribution of economic goods. Democracy describes our political institutions and our governmental processes. To equate democracy with capitalism, therefore, is to insist upon an identity which is totally irrelevant to reality.

Historically, American society has given expression to forces supportive of capitalism and also forces which have been in opposition to it. We simply may not, therefore, equate democracy with capitalism, nor may we, on the other hand, equate socialism with totalitarianism. History does not reveal any particular mutualism between capitalism and democracy, neither does it identify collectivism or non-capitalism with totalitarianism. History records, on the contrary, that democratic processes of government are sometimes associated with socialism and that in contemporary European countries they have, when joined with a considerable amount of socialism, provided a principal defense against totalitarianism.

Moreover, capitalism, the full historical record reveals, has frequently been associated with colonialism and with political systems and structures which are anti-democratic. The hazard encountered when we equate democracy with capitalism is that we immediately place the economic status quo beyond the reaction of public opinion. Such an identification might, therefore, actually lead to the destruction of democracy itself, since any attempt to modify capitalism through the ordinary procedures of the democratic society, such as discussion of ideas and public criticism, might, because it constitutes a threat to capitalism, lead to the abandonment of democracy.

Another model is encountered in the identification of democracy with American constitutionalism. In this particular search for the real or true ideal, democracy is visualized as federalism, as the check and balance system, and as the separation of powers. Actually, these features of American constitutionalism are neither the essence of democracy nor are they essential to it, here or anywhere. Their existence in some instances has, in fact, hindered the development of democracy in America. They came into being largely as a necessity of political compromise, as a means of resolving differences peculiar to the united States. Federalism, for example, grew out of the political arrangements which were characteristic of our country's colonial history. The practice of checks and balances and the separation of powers, while an outcome of early colonial experience, was really an improvisation which was introduced into the basic elements of the government of the United States in order to thwart the popular will, or to avert what was commonly described as the tyranny of the majority. It would be improper, therefore, to hold that these characteristics of or elements in our constitutional arrangements are the essence of American democracy. Democracy can and does function effectively in other countries under institutions which certainly do not contain any of the elements of federalism, checks and balances and the separation of powers.

The identification of democracy with a faith or a credo, specific economic institutions, or certain unique features of our Constitution do a disservice to the concept. They reveal a failure to understand it. This sadly is one of the hazards which confronts our society today, because, as has been pointed out earlier, if we fail to understand what democracy really means, we certainly will be less competent to preserve it. If we struggle to realize a false image or model, we will quite likely give ourselves a directional impulse which is inimical to democracy.

We must know what democracy really is and means~ we cannot afford to act on the basis of a mistaken identity. We must know, also, that by virtue of its very essence, democracy presents a dilemma—the dilemma is how to maintain democracy despite the fact that within its essential essence may lie the seed of its own destruction.

The concept of the open society is the essence of the meaning of democracy; it, also, is the source of the democratic dilemma.

Anthropologists contend that in all societies there are certain “cultural universals.” These are the basic beliefs that hold a society together and give it meaning to its members. They are shared universally and once accepted become the embodiments of the spirit of the culture and they so permeate a society that they exclude other or alternative values. Institutions and practices tend, thus, to be opposite to or inversely related to others. This is true since they tend to implement or reflect competitive or opposite values; therefore, they are exclusive—monogamy excludes polygamy, for example.

If we are to appreciate the character of the open society, we must recognize that universals cannot be recognized as constituting such an integral part of the life of the society that they must be universally and rigorously imposed upon the people through the exercise of the political power of the government. Of course, such an admission does not carry with it the implication that a democratic society does not have or cannot rest upon a common set of values. Actually, a free or democratic society must have such values, but they must relate to the society in a different manner than those which are found in a rigorously structured society, whether extremely primitive or of a modern totalitarian character. The cement that binds a democratic society together is unique; whereas, there are no substantive universals imposed upon the citizen by law, there are certain processes to which there is universal commitment incorporated in the body politic. These can be regarded as “procedural universals,” and they are absolutely fundamental to the democratic society. They are the essential freedoms and constitutional guarantees, such as the freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, freedom of press, freedom of association, and freedom from arbitrary action of the government, or, in essence, due process of law.

Another universal or basic absolute, you might say, of the free society, is the integrity of the individual—the requirement that the citizen must be regarded at all times as an individual possessing fully and equally with all others the same basic rights under the Constitution and the same freedom to be involved in society.

These are the essential ideas of the free society and they are vital to the preservation of it. When they exist, it is impossible for an authoritarian or totalitarian system to come into being and it is only when they do exist that a free society can be said to be operative among people.

The general idea that derives from this condition, of course, is that there must be some common values—such as the necessity of speaking honestly, or seeking the truth, of dealing fairly with opposing views, and of acting with integrity toward the existing institutions of a country, of recognizing due process of law, and of exercising self-control or engaging in responsible personal self-government. In a free society it is essential that one is concerned about means as well as ends and that one avoids making the means the ends of society—in other words, making the control and the use of power the end of government.

Power must be exercised with the understanding that power is not absolute and that it must be used constructively—at all times with due respect for the rights of the individual. These are the essential universals of the democratic system as it pursues its search for truth and for social justice. This unending quest for truth is the thing that will make men free. While it continues there will not be a final attachment to an idea, an ideology, to a faith, or to a particular value which characterizes totalitarianism in its many forms. In its essence, the free society means that all substantive questions are open to question.

Doctors John Livingston and Robert Thompson in The Consent of the Governed have stated it as follows: “... the ideal of democracy requires that all universals be procedural rather than substantive and that all questions ... be at least potentially open ones.”

A qualification is that it is not likely or even desirable from the point-of-view of social stability “that all matters will be in dispute at all times. It is only necessary that they be potentially open“ for evaluation. This essentially is the difference between a totalitarian and democratic society—that is, “The totalitarian state operates from an authoritative all-embracing ideology which furnishes answers to all human problems and standards of taste and judgment and all human relations” at all times.

A pluralistic or open society is one “in which government does not prescribe the interests or opinions of its citizens and in which, therefore, forms of group life may flourish at the initiative and discretion of citizens.”

Having defined the democratic idea, or model, as a system of government in which the citizens are charged generally with determining who will govern them and only incidentally are engaged in the actual process of government, I will undertake to relate this system to the individual citizen.

A question that one might pose is whether the government which democracy provides is good or bad. In reflecting upon this question, one must realize that goodness is purely, in the political sense, subjective and relative.

There appear to be no objective and absolute criteria of goodness insofar as the ends of government are concerned; goodness in this context is strictly relative and a matter of opinion. As a consequence, any value judgment about the goodness or badness of government will of necessity be debatable. However, one should, in reflecting on this problem, keep in mind the obvious fact that democracy itself is not an end of government and that the existence of democracy does not of necessity result in conditions which are automatically or of necessity in conformity with the public good. A democracy is merely a method of government; it may lead to good or bad government. We, therefore, must constantly remind ourselves that democracy guarantees only one thing—that the citizens will control their government and that there is no guarantee as to the quality of the result of that government.

Whether the product of democratic government is good will depend, I suppose, on its ability to provide for the public or the general welfare. This, too, will depend, I think, upon the level of involvement of its citizens, the knowledge that the citizens have of problems of government, and the freedom that they enjoy to debate issues and to exercise the right of dissent. Such conditions are absolutely essential to the ultimate success of government by the people, they will provide, if the consensus or majority view proves inappropriate or contrary to the general welfare, a means through which change may be achieved and the minority point-of-view elevated to the level of a consensus. In this way democracy can and may provide a means for improvement and for the implementation of the good life by peaceful, evolutionary change, by revision and adjustment.

The good life probably, if it were to be defined in terms of specifics, would include the following:

the preservation of the freedom of the individual to fulfill himself as a citizen;
the creation of a continuing opportunity for the citizen to function within the economic system on a level commensurate with his abilities;
an assurance to the individual of a position in the social system fully equal to that of any other individual, in effect status free from any form of discrimination which, deriving either from law or custom, assigns him an inferior position in society for any reason not related to his qualities or capabilities as a citizen;
the protection of the independence of the state and the preservation of its sovereignty against external aggression;
the creation of opportunities for the individual to develop fully the capacities of mind, spirit and body necessary for meaningful involvement in society in all of its aspects—cultural, educational, political;
adequate provision for dealing with the problems which, while affecting the general well being, do not lend themselves to treatment on an individualistic basis; (examples of such a need would be that of education, elimination of air and water pollution, conservation of natural resources, community planning, national defense, and so on. Obviously, in an expanding, dynamic society such as ours, there will be an expansion of government into areas of activities which are of such a character);
stabilization of the economic system in order to provide reasonably full employment, economic growth and expansion and a fairly wide diffusion of the national income among the citizens of the state;
protection of the society through regulatory activities to check the abuses of monopoly or economic individualism;
maintenance of law and order—the protection of property, civil order and public morals—the exercise of the police power of the state; and, finally,
provision for a fair and speedy administration of justice through an honest and efficient judicial process.

Obviously, these criteria are not intended to be all inclusive, but they do, I think, offer a fairly selective and comprehensive list against which we might evaluate whether or not one's community conforms to the standards of a good society. Of course, it is apparent that any evaluation of a community or a society in terms of success or failures in these areas will be subject to disagreement, and quite possibly the principal areas of disagreement probably would center on the following:

National defense. The question which might be raised would be whether or not the government is adequately dealing with the communist menace, both as an ideology and as a form of political and economic aggression.

Civil rights. The question might be whether or not the government, under certain conditions, ought or ought not to protect citizens in their constitutional rights as citizens.

Civil liberties. Another closely related area of difference might be that of civil liberties—the issue being whether or not specified government policies might constitute a substantial interference with freedom of press and speech or the exercise of those basic rights which are essential to the preservation of a free citizenship.

Economic stabilization. Here the disagreement might very well be whether the government is proceeding too far with the regulation and taxation of business and is engaging in activities of an economic character which are harmful to the economy and, therefore, inimical to the economic goals of the society.

Welfare. The question might certainly be raised as to whether the government is undermining the moral character of the people through its efforts to compensate through welfare programs for the economic inadequacies of the economy and the poverty of many citizens.

There are other areas of major differences which might be mentioned; these, I believe, are the principal ones.

The critical factor in a democracy is that government is the responsibility ultimately of the majority of the citizens. Meaningful majority rule explicitly requires that government be aware of the public well being and that it attempt to advance it to the best of its ability—acknowledging at all times, however, the limits upon its power—and, therefore, while implementing programs as a means of achieving its objectives, preserve the maximum area of freedom £or the individual.

Also, essential to the democratic ideal is the right of the minority to the exercise of those freedoms which it must possess if it is to translate into policy and program the minority position.

It is in this context that the individual citizen operates and functions in a democracy. He commits himself to it; he involves himself in it, and he, at all times, evaluates it from the standpoint of the public, as well as the private good. Whether the citizen, in his evaluation of government sees good or evil will depend, of course, on his perspective.

We might reflect briefly upon the Greek concepts of Hubris and Sophrosyne, as we undertake to render a judgment upon the outcome of the governmental processes. Hubris, excessive pride and insolence, was regarded by the Greeks as sinful behavior. Sophrosyne, a personal life which exhibited self-restraint and intelligent recognition of the needs and requirements of the community, was regarded as virtuous behavior.

A problem confronting society today derives from the fact that there are those who, because of a lack of understanding of the real character of democracy, would through an excessive display of Hubris, or through an insolent disregard of the community interests, produce a condition of social chaos. A genuine possibility is that a condition of social anarchy may be brought on through an excessive assertion of selfish individualism. A problem of a different character and dimension is that other individuals, through an over-zealous pursuit of Sophrosyne, may encourage a subservience of the citizen to the society, or its personification in the state, and, as a consequence, introduce a form of totalitarianism into America.

On this point José Ortega y Gasset commented: “there will not be found amongst all representatives of the actual period, a single group whose attitude to life is not limited to believing that it has all the rights and none of the obligations. It is indifferent whether it disguises itself as reactionary or revolutionary; actively or passively, after one or two twists, its state of mind will consist, decisively, in ignoring all obligations, and in feeling itself, without the slightest notion of why, possessed of unlimited rights. Whatever be the substance which takes the position of such a soul, it will produce the same result, and will change it into a pretext for not conforming to any concrete purpose. If it appears as reactionary or anti-liberal it will be in order to affirm that the salvation of the state establishes a right to level down all other standards, and to man-handle one's neighbor but the same happens if it decides to act the revolutionary; the apparent enthusiasm for the manual worker, for the afflicted, for social justice, serves as a mask to facilitate the refusal of all obligations.”

In a free society the relation of subject and predicate, or citizen as agent and citizen as a recipient, are interesting. In the role of subject or agent the individual, to the degree that he is involved, influences the outcome of government, or its ultimate character. The citizen, if he is displeased with society as he interprets its goals and achievement, has an obligation to undertake to change it; this is not aright, it is the responsibility and obligation of all citizens in the free society. It is especially the obligation of the Christian, and especially of the educated citizen—for he must be involved if the ends of government are to prove worthy of its ideals. So, the citizen, in his role as activist or participant, can be and must be one of the many forces which determine the end result of government. The end product of government, of course, is the experience of the citizen in his passive role in which he is the principal object or recipient of the exercise of government power and authority. He is hardly justified in criticizing the condition of his fate as a recipient, or as an object of the ends of government, if he declines to exercise the role of citizen and refuses to assume his share of the responsibility for the determination of its ends and for the implementation of those ends.

The special obligation of the Christian flows from the fact that his life is ordered and constructed upon a religious foundation and reflects, if it is a worthy life, the ideals of that faith. We may infer from history, also, that the Christian ethics rest upon values which are traditionally related to the basic values of the free society, for example, (1) the emphasis placed upon the inner character of man, his motives, will and desires, (2) the importance to the Christian of the commandment of love, (3) the view that man is under obligation to God, which gives cosmic significance to his moral life, (4) the role of Christ as an inspiration to a life of idealism, and, finally, and very significant, Christianity's emphasis upon the absolute necessity of man's spiritual and moral growth—the view of man as an end and not as a means to an end.

This latter view of man, of course, is the absolute essence of the democratic ideal of society. Democracy affirms that man and the service of man is the end of government. It rejects the view that man is a servant of the state, and, as such, is a thing to be manipulated in order to serve ends other than those related to his own dignity and personal fulfillment.

The initial encounter of the citizen in his attempt to engage in politics is one of bewilderment and confusion. He does not know how to be effective and not infrequently an inadequate understanding of government leads to discouragement and eventually to disengagement. Usually, the sense of frustration experienced by the novice results from his over optimism. His unrealistic expectations produce a disappointing encounter. This can be avoided if the expectations of the first commitment are not too ambitious. It is important also that the neophyte learn how to make his effort reasonably effectual~ otherwise, a sense of inadequacy will fortify the sense of frustration and contribute to disillusionment and withdrawal.

There are essentially two ways to be involved in government: one, is as a citizen concerned with the public well being and the other is as a member of an interest group which is organized to advance a special objective. All of us are part of the public; all of us are members of one or more special interest groups.

If we desire an involvement or commitment aimed at a fuller expression of our membership in the community, we may proceed directly to partisan politics or to involvement in an idea group trying to influence government. If we wish to serve a personal, special interest, we may act as part of or through a special interest group—a business association, a religious organization, an employee group, or an employer group.

The widespread acceptance today of the “brokerage” theory of government, which visualizes government primarily as the reconciliation of selfish or special interests, presents a serious problem to a democratic society. Most citizens have a primary commitment to special interests and mild, almost indifferent, feeling toward the general interest. The compulsion experienced by many citizens, therefore, is the powerful urge to avoid partisan politics and to be involved almost completely and sometimes quite intensely in the cause of a particular and personal special interest.

The crux of our crisis in democracy today, therefore, is found, to a significant degree, in “the attitudes of individual citizens toward politics.” There seems to be an excessive preoccupation with personal affairs, which, in the words of De Tocqueville, “saps the virtues of public life,” and a too narrow involvement of the citizen in matters of public concern.

This condition encourages the “brokerage” concept or practice of government and tends to negate the prime requirement of democracy, which is that the citizen's role is to serve the interest of the public good.

If the Christian is to be involved in a meaningful way, he must share in the processes of government and be consciously active on the determination and advancement of the public good. This aspect of his civic life must be completely subordinate to his commitment to his selfish, business, professional or workingman's interest.

There are too many individuals who do not realize that the obligation of the citizen is one which requires a commitment and an involvement in the broad arena of political strife and controversy. This, therefore, is a cardinal weakness of the free society.

The issue before us, therefore, is not whether government is evil or good; the issue before us is the failure for the average man to realize that government is a primary responsibility of the citizen and, particularly, of the Christian citizen.

The role of an active citizen is not always easy. Registering and voting are time consuming, but that is about all, and this is the simplest and most direct way in which a citizen functions in the body politic. However, an involvement beyond this level, through active identification with a political party, involves more of a commitment, more of an effort, and more distress. Such an involvement places the individual in a role which produces an experience unknown to those associated with the church, with a special interest group, with civic activities, or even with non-partisan politics. Such an involvement provides an automatic encounter with controversy and conflict; it is sometimes exhilarating, but, as I have suggested, it is more often disillusioning. However, the principal difficulty encountered in personal involvement is not in becoming accustomed to confusion, to conflict, or the intrusion of politics into one's private life; it is rather in finding a modus operandi within a pluralistic society, embracing many special interest groups, for the effective implementation of one's essential moral convictions and, at the same time, preserving and safeguarding the institutions and processes which collectively make up the democratic way of life.

One immediately finds, when one is involved in partisan politics, that controversy is immediate, often intense, and tremendously disruptive. Often, unfortunately, it becomes quite personal. Success requires, therefore, that one view dispassionately the arena of politics when committed to it and learn, as President Johnson observed, “to disagree without being disagreeable,” and, thus, insure that a conflict of ideals does not become translated into a conflict of personalities or even destructive militancy.

Perhaps, the greatest danger of the moralist in politics is his tendency toward dogmatism—his inclination to take a black and white view on political issues, to see government as right or wrong, rather than good or bad. This propensity of the moralist produces a compulsion to become dogmatic and doctrinaire. It seriously handicaps one's ability to function effectively in an area where the preservation of relations cordial to the continuation of a dialogue is essential. Failure to exercise restraint in the context of active political involvement can produce a miasma or political sickness totally destructive of the spirit and institutions of the open society.

The fundamentalist religions, in particular, have trouble when politically committed. Absolute in the beliefs about their religion and the essential truths of their doctrine, they are unable to admit the view that society should tolerate an opposite view or to allow it to be advocated. Censorship—an appeal to the state—is the bulwark upon which they often rest their case and in so doing they advocate a course of action which, if pursued relentlessly, possesses an inherent potential for producing the final death of the free society, which of necessity must be pluralistic. Fundamentalists experience a difficulty in accepting or tolerating conditions which from their perspective are goalless, immoral and, therefore, sinful.

The truths revealed to them in their view are the ones which should be made the “established truth.” They fail to realize that in a non-democratic, non-pluralistic society, error, either of the majority or the minority, might or rather are generally permanently enthroned as “established truth.”

The Christian must, therefore, continuously remind himself that politics is not a black or white situation—especially in a free society. It is majority rule expressed with proper regard for the minority and with the guarantee of an opportunity for the minority to translate its view into a majority position. The Christian must rekindle the eternal hope that the prevailing majorities will reflect moral principles; since a society without ideals cannot achieve its true worth any more than can an individual.

Rigid adherence to the Christian ethic often generates in the believer a quality of absoluteness which also generates problems for the Christian who vigorously seeks to make that ethic viable and universal. It brings him into direct confrontation with the necessity of achieving a reconciliation between this commandment and the issues of war and peace, capital punishment, racial discrimination, social justice, and public and private morality.

The practical requirements of political life obviously produce a dichotomy or dual standard which is essentially a compromise and usually disturbing and unsatisfying to Christians. Some respond by withdrawal, even from society, and others from political life—taking the position that they can have no commitment to a political entity based upon values they reject or as operating amorally or without values. Others accept the anomaly and rationalize it—usually with the view that the democratic society through their involvement may create a morality, if it has none, or develop one more congenial to Christian idealism, if it is totally secular and materialistic. It is their hope, of course, that the separation of the spiritual and temporal power will then become less distinct and both the individual and society will be benefited.

At all times we must remember that American government is not based upon an ideology—that it tends to be non-ideological and that it is basically pragmatic. It deals with problems as they develop on a practical basis. If it has an ideology—and I doubt it appropriate to use the term in such a manner—the ideology is the concept and practice of majority rule and respect for the dissenting view of the minority. From its pluralism has come, therefore, a consensus which is an adjustment to practical problems, not an implementation of a particular ideology. In its concept and practice, the state is not given the role of protector of any orthodoxy or doctrine, whether of statism, Protestantism, atheism, communism, or racism. Its role is to preserve an opportunity for the people to develop a consensus which will produce the good life—justice to all men and respect for the dignity of man—clearly essential elements of the Christian ethics.

A corollary rule is that if there is a determination to proscribe by law a form of behavior because it is regarded as contrary to the moral precepts of Christianity or of a particular interpretation of Christian moral values, it should be established, prior to its enactment, that any such legislative proscription serves the public good by preventing a social evil and that it is not merely a prohibition of personal freedom, even if judged essential to the individual's well being. This is, it seems to me a basic principle to be recognized and observed by those citizens of an “open or free society” who understand its essential character—its pluralism.

The “closed society” can, of course, impose its will on the individual for his own good or for the good of the secular theology. In fact, it is not only appropriate to the ideology of such a society, but essential for its survival.

Conclusions

It would seem to me that the Christian, as an individual and as a member of a Christian fellowship, must have a special obligation to participate in politics. But, in so doing, he must be aware of the metes and bounds or the context within which his political involvement will of necessity place him. He must understand the open or democratic society; its pluralistic character; its ends and goals; its ideology and moral assumptions; and its peculiarities of structure and organization.

He must avoid being doctrinaire about his peculiar morality; he must accept the majority rule; protect the right of dissent; reconcile himself to the view that the immorality of the community—or even its amorality should be corrected by education and precept in preference to legislation. If society errs, he must remember that it is better to err and be free to change than to err permanently, once and forever.

He should remember the admonition of Michah in the Old Testament:

“Seek justice; love mercy and walk humbly in the presence of God.”

He should prefer to “light a candle than curse the darkness.”

The Challenge of Higher Education (1970)

2007-08-18T22:30:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: The Challenge of Higher Education

Although this paper speaks to one of Senator Rodda's abiding concerns—higher education and its role in society—it carries no indication of having been prepared as either a speech or position paper. It had the cadences one would expect in one of the Senator's spoken addresses, but it may be simply an essay he prepared and kept among his papers for future use. He returned to this topic time and again.

We note that Sen. Rodda was rather forward looking in his inclusion of bioengineering, gene manipulation, and the environment among his concerns. The date on this paper shows that it was written a few weeks before the first Earth Day.

—TB

Higher Education: The Challenge

March 6, 1970

The Greeks brought into the mainstream of Western civilization a manner of thinking which has had implications perhaps even more far-reaching for contemporary society than the Judeo-Christian religious traditions. Beginning with Greek intellectual explorations into epistemology and metaphysics, it ultimately developed into the scientific method, a fantastically effective instrument for the advancement of the frontiers of human understanding. The end-product has been the full exposure to human reason and manipulation of the most obscure phenomena of nature. A concomitant effect has been the transformation of the way in which modern man visualizes himself in relation to the cosmos, his natural environment, the earth, and God. It has produced for man a vision of himself as homo sapiens, the maker of his own destiny and the master of nature. To a rapidly growing number of individuals, however, this new image of man, alone and independent, the free agent, absent a relevant agreement on morality and ethics, is less than reassuring, more than disturbing, even frightening.

Absorbed in an intellectual interest which has focused upon the desirability of rationalizing social organization to achieve practical goals, civilized man, significantly a product of the academy of higher education, has truly become homo faber or the technical man.

Inferior to none as pragmatists and scientists, the American people may point with pride to a record of accomplishment which, judged or measured by the three criteria of economic affluence, military power, and scientific technology, is without question a success story unmatched in the history of human endeavor.

The national biography is, however, not free of significant faults, which come into view when one examines the side effects of the American success story. They are so massive that they force one to question the initial judgment which rendered the verdict of success and to apply instead the Scottish verdict of “not proven—not innocent and set free, not guilty and condemned, simply not proven.”

It does not require the formal judgment of a professional economist, for example, to establish that a steadily rising Gross National Product may be a poor indicator of a nation's economic well being—that it tells nothing about the degree of inequality in the distribution of income and the diffusion of wealth, the uneven incidence of unemployment or its devastating effect upon the individual, the baneful quality of many consumer goods, the cruel effects of inflation upon those with fixed incomes and upon the poor, or the widespread exploitation of unorganized, unskilled labor.

Obviously, our obsession with crude measurements of economic growth has blinded us to the dramatic economic realities of American life and has prevented us from utilizing our tremendous resources for the achievement of genuine economic welfare.

Imagine a nation which possesses 6% of the world's population and which produces over 50% of the world's economic goods tolerating widespread hunger and malnutrition and confessing to the world that it cannot build housing for a substantial portion of its citizens. Is this a story of success?

The existence of a thermonuclear over-kill admittedly provides the nation with the ability to destroy its enemies, but it cannot be honestly argued that it affords the nation a genuine feeling of security. It enables us to live only with the assurance that each day that passes may bring us closer to the ultimate moment in time when “civilized man” will achieve his total self-destruction.

Arthur T. Hadley, in The Nation's Safety and Arms Control, expresses the view that the “balance of power or terror” concept is useless as a formula for the achievement of peace, and he wryly comments that “technical equipment and arms have as much to do with peace as frogs with weather.”

He argues that the road to peace is not through the creation of greater military power. but through large-scale arms limitation and a significant modification in the structure and operation of the “national state system.” Unfortunately, in the present context of American thinking, his proposal is so susceptible to the charge of “unAmerican” that seriously to offer it as a viable alternative to international arms competition and proliferation is almost impossible. A potential avenue to world peace, therefore, is practically removed from meaningful consideration. And so, despite the obvious lessons of history, we blindly pursue an irrational plan for the avoidance of destruction which defines the metes and bounds of world peace in terms of megatons of nuclear power and an expanding arsenal of modern weaponry.

Our technical competency was displayed to the world when the first American walked on the moon, and we may point with pride to achievements such as a developing capability for bioengineering and genetic manipulation, the regular occurrence of human transplants, the development of fantastic computers, dramatic progress in cybernetics, and the continued probe of outer space. But these accomplishments hardly tell the full story of technical progress. There are adverse side effects which must be considered: pollution, resource depletion, crime, urban decay, drug addiction, racial warfare, hunger and malnutrition, mental disorder and widespread social alienation and disorientation, all of which seem closely related to the advancement of science.

Our mechanical marvels and our scientific knowledge leave us with the substance of material success, but also with a crippled man, who exists, but has almost ceased to experience a wholesome life. He feels alienated and, therefore, is deficient in the experience of personal fulfillment. The reality of “progress” as being significantly counterproductive is a fact of life that we have been too prone to ignore.

Dr. Willis Harmon, in a scholarly paper entitled “Contest for Education in the Seventies,” contends that the “operational values and goals” of American society, which must be inferred from the “actions taken,” are inadequate for the requirements of tomorrow. Referring to them as the “pathogenic premises and values in the culture,” Harmon insists that they must be replaced by “more constructive humane ones.”

My inclination is to agree, since I am extremely dismayed over the direction in which Western civilization is moving. I am troubled because I can see important elements of the future present here and now. We need only to project them forward, either in a magnified or diminished degree, to obtain a partial vision of our tomorrow. Admittedly, elements not now present will emerge in the future, but—if I understand our dilemma correctly—not as a matter of rational choice. Instead, they will of necessity be the response of a computerized technical society to its own self-directing mechanism rather than to the rationally conceived metaphysical and material needs of people.

The almost certain probability of the eventualization of my vision of the future, which maybe thought of as the “contextual imperatives” of the human condition, forces me to view the future quite pessimistically.

An honest extrapolation of the “Brave New World” of tomorrow would, in my view, include, although not be limited to, the following:

a more destructive and costly military kill-capability;
massive manipulation, pollution and destruction of the natural environment and ecology;
overpopulation, mass poverty and hunger;
a bioengineering and genetic manipulation capability, with a non-existent or inadequate ethic for its direction and control;
racial tension and, perhaps, organized racial oppression;
urban decay and rot and an urban sub-culture which spawns deviant and criminal behavior;
massive reliance upon the power of institutional violence for the preservation of social order;
an exaggerated functional materialism, which equates human happiness with the abundant life; and
widespread alienation from and non-commitment to society.

I must admit that my look into the future is bleak and I suppose that one may ask: Is there anything better to anticipate? I can only answer affirmatively if there is a positive and constructive response to the challenge which confronts western civilization.

Arnold Toynbee in The Story of History indicts man himself as responsible for human tragedy, since civilization takes direction from human response to historical confrontation. Toynbee's thesis is that disaster results if human beings, when challenged by crisis, react unrealistically and irrationally. Toynbee sees in history, therefore, no promise of good or bad, only a challenge.

In The Open Society and Its Enemies, Karl Popper reasons to essentially the same conclusion and hurls essentially the same challenge. History, he argues, has no metaphysical or philosophical significance, since it leads mankind nowhere. It has meaning only in a “pragmatic or existential sense” or to the extent that man gives it meaning through his response to crisis.

Since history has no ends or goals of its own, Popper argues that meaning for mankind may not be discovered in history. It is imparted to history by man through his freedom of choice. Mankind is not, therefore, fated to an end which is predetermined: he has the freedom to choose—the way and the end.

Like Toynbee, Popper makes no promise and no prediction for tomorrow, but he argues that man will choose well if he chooses human freedom, social justice, individual equality and peace.

In this connection, Tom Wicker of the New York Times observed in his critique of the “Report of the Eisenhower Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence” that the “greatest threat to American society is internal and not external.”

And he made the observation that the “... greatness and durability of most civilizations have been finally determined by how they responded to ... challenge from within,” and that “ours will be no exception.”

Wicker is greatly disturbed, however, by what he observes in America today because he cannot discern the presence of a national will to produce an appropriate response to the American crisis. Sadly, he predicts that the will to respond will not emerge until “... there is a move away from materialism, apathy and complacency and the vulgar know-nothingness that so often passes for common sense along Main Street ...”

If I interpret Wicker correctly, he is arguing the absolute necessity for the nation significantly to modify its operative values and goals and to adjust its institutions and behavior patterns accordingly. I am inclined strongly to agree.

Abraham Maslow in The Psychology of Being suggests that, perhaps, we are experiencing such a change. “A new vision of the possibilities of man,” he contends, “is emerging ... and its implications are many ... for our conceptions of education...science, politics, literature, economics, religious, and even ... the non-human world.” Whatever the change may be—and Maslow thinks of it as “a new philosophy of man”—it must, I believe, induce a will to change dramatically how we behave toward each other and in our natural environment. Without a change in our purposes, individual and collective, we will continue to misuse our talents and in the end totally deny the very nature of our being.

Man will become the victim of a system of his own creation, and the underlying deterministic assumptions of Marxian and of Behaviorist psychology will have been fulfilled. Human decision-making will be primarily and simply a response to the logical imperatives of an economic system geared to mass consumption as a means to maximize profits, to a science and technology whose goals are an extension of the mathematical logic of their own structure and development, and to a political power structure totally governed by irrational and doctrinaire responses to problems affecting national security, the rights of minorities, and internal disorder and violence.

A consequence of externalizing the rationale of our lives and of adjusting them totally in response to the outward world rather than the inner man will be a depersonalization and dehumanization of ourselves and our society. We will sadly discover that we have, in the process of becoming “programmed human beings,” surrendered our capability of being self-actualizing persons or of achieving meaningful fulfillment.

Probably, at the time of the discovery, we will be functioning within a totalitarian utopia which will have emerged as the only viable social alternative in a society torn by materialism, exploitation, brutality, and a general feeling of non-fulfillment. The frustrations, tensions, and anxieties of such a social condition will certainly have produced social alienation on such a massive scale that the continuance of a political system legitimized by popular support, will of necessity have been abandoned.

Hopefully, the ability to achieve a transformation in contemporary society, which will maximize rather than minimize the opportunity for human fulfillment, is still an option open to us. There are some constructive forces which give an indication or sign that a leavening influence is at work. They are, for example:

the youth revolt against materialism and-against the dehumanizing and irrational forces in contemporary society;
expressions of concern among scientists about the ends served by science;
the development of experimental colleges and universities and new curricula;
religious ecumenicalism and a revival within churches of the importance of personal witness to the teaching of Christ;
the emergence of new and powerful influences in psychology and philosophy, which jointly are altering our view of man's nature .and needs;
a modest recognition by industrial and political leaders of the need for a positive response to the problems of hunger, war, environmental destruction, racial conflicts, and personal alienation.

As encouraging as these signs are, it is my view that the principal operational forces and goals in the world society remain as described by Tom Wicker and that they account for the unfortunate non-existence of a will for change.

The “establishment” is devoid of a genuine capacity for self-evaluation; the authority of the conventional wisdom remains largely unquestioned; and the propensity to apply materialistic criteria in therefore, that a will to create a more humane, person-centered society can develop into a meaningful force in contemporary society.

Incremental shifts in the premises and values of a civilization sometimes occur, but major adjustments occur seldom, if ever. And yet, if one believes that the drift of things is to make man irrelevant, one must force a dialogue which challenges the adequacy of the status quo—its values and goals.

Traditionally, it has been the responsibility of higher education to provide such a dialogue. Hopefully it will continue to do so. And, of course, if it does, the dialogue must not be mere pretense; it must be a genuine and searching analysis of basic premises, principles, goals and institutions of contemporary life.

If such is to be the character of the intellectual probing of the quality of our society, the institutions of higher education must be free and independent; otherwise, their explorations will have no other capability than that of providing an intellectual reinforcement of the present arrangements.

This presents the academy of learning with two problems: first, of course, to achieve a significant degree of academic freedom, and, second, to utilize its intellectual freedom to produce a new synthesis of human understanding and aspirations.

Only if this is accomplished will higher education contribute significantly to a change in the directional movement of society, of technology, and, therefore, of the human race.

As a politician, I have a relation to the first problem—that of academic freedom; and, you in higher education, private and public, have a relation to the second—that of the integrity of the academic community.

My task, as a legislator, is to preserve the freedom of higher education to explore truth. This is a difficult assignment and its difficulty will increase with the intensity of the conflict between emergent values directed toward a restructuring of society and the “operative values” of a well established system.

Perhaps, it may not be accomplished, since it is very questionable, in my view, that the outer community or the “town” will be so permissive toward academia. Higher education appears to have become such an integral part of the status quo that it is almost nonsensical to talk of its independence or autonomy. Academic freedom can be expected, therefore, to survive in the coming critical years in form, but not in substance. Scholars may be allowed to discuss “yes-yeses,” but not “no-noes”; otherwise, budgets will be cut, faculty dismissed, personnel made subject to ideological litmus tests, which identify right from wrong thinking; the social sciences and the humanities minified within the world of learning; science and “skill and service training” given even more prestigious status; the faculty diminished in influence, and trouble-making or non-conformist students disciplined.

The “town” holds to a strong feeling of “ownership” toward academia, and the manifestations of this possessiveness are clearly set forth in a legislator's correspondence, in the character of the legislation designed to cure campus disorder, and in the posture and attitude of executive leadership at all levels of government.

The public mind evaluates the university on a scale of imperfectability inversely proportionate to its conformity to the conventional wisdom, the requirements of law and order, and the status quo. Any propensity on the part of the intellectual establishment toward a pathological diagnosis of society produces an immediate “hue and cry” for legislation designed to punish, discipline, control, and even, in extreme cases, to “shut it down.”

Against the political pressures, which are a natural concomitant of a mindless public response to “campus radicalism and divergency,” all politicians who stand for academic freedom do so at their political peril. During times of social stress, when there is a conflict between those who would use their minds and those who would not, the elected official who supports academia is considerably more expendable politically than is normally the case. And yet this is a vulnerability to which a thinking politician must submit if he is to protect his own integrity. This is a fact of political life in a democratic society derived from the vital importance of academic freedom, objective and honest dialogue, and freedom of speech to the formulation of social values and goals, and to the creation of an informed public opinion.

Obviously academic freedom is relative and it is weaker during a time of ideational conflict.

Viewed in this context, one would be irresponsible to assume that great success will accompany the efforts of those desirous of providing independence and freedom for the intellectual establishment. But to rush to the other extreme is quite possibly unjustified, also. If we assume, therefore, a reasonable degree of freedom to explore ideas, to define goals, to wrestle with problems of student unrest and campus turmoil, and to experiment with curricula, another question yet remains: Can academia respond appropriately? Can it make its freedom meaningful?

Frankly, I doubt that it can.

I cannot advise higher education what it should become. I would expect, however, that there should emerge some significant changes within higher education, for example:

assurance that higher education research will not prostitute the ideals and values of academia;
abandonment of the impulsive—almost neurotic—drive for professional academic success which seems more and more to separate the professor from the teacher and the teacher from the student, since the establishment of a viable teacher-student relationship seems less and less the road to success in academia;
modification of the university curricula in order to relate it more closely to the spiritual, psychological and esthetic;
involvement of the academic world in community service, not militant activism and confrontation, but rather in a constructive involvement to effect those ideals which will produce a society more idealistically motivated and less prone to produce anxiety, hopelessness, pessimism, alienation and deviant behavior;
improved cross-fertilization of ideas and knowledge among the professionals within the various specialties;
continuous and relevant process of self-evaluation within all areas of academia;
exploration, through innovative curricula structures and new models for internal organization, of ways to improve the educational process, despite the fact that to experiment is to hazard the embarrassment of failure;
exposure of the flaws in the institutional structure and value fabrics of Western civilization which lead to the pursuit of goals removed from relevance for the psychological and physiological well being of man.

Perhaps, it is asking too much to expect higher education to respond to the challenge of our times; yet a “critique” must be made, for civilization must have a capability for ongoing self- evaluation. Western civilization is predicated upon the assumption that science and technology will provide the means to utopia; higher education must advise us of the validity or invalidity of this premise.

Former President of the University of California, Clark Kerr, stated that the idea of the multiversity “ ... has its reality rooted in the logic of history. It is an imperative rather than a reasoned choice among elegant alternatives.”

To the extent that this is a description of the origin of the multiversity or of higher education today, as well as an historical interpretation of its development, the expectation of human fulfillment through the fulfillment of higher education is not likely to materialize.

If higher education is so much apart of what is that it may not become the creator of what ought to be, we may find it necessary to rely upon other centers of learning—those independent of the status quo, if there are any.

Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka in Phenomenology and Science in Contemporary European Thought describes the dilemma of modern man as follows:

“Modern man ... has lost his innermost roots in his experience of nature, his relations with others, and his awareness of metaphysical dimensions. Technocratic man, limited to conventionalized social responses and utilitarian functions designed for mere material comfort, is infested with endemic diseases which threaten to end humanity if not human nature.”

Jonathan Swift foresaw the dilemma of modern man when he placed Gulliver on the Island of Laputa, where Gulliver encountered a people so single-mindedly devoted to pure reason that they were totally isolated from the problems of real life and existence. Gulliver fled in dismay. That we need to fly from Laputa is as obvious as it was to Gulliver; the question is: Can we fly from Laputa without crashing upon the barren desert of Nihilism or the wasteland of Caesarism, so frequently the fate of those who turn from reason and mind to emotion and heart?

Freedom: With God or without God? (1971)

2007-08-17T09:30:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: Concepts of freedom in contexts of God

Albert Rodda was a lifelong Methodist who was married to a lifelong Roman Catholic. Both Albert and Clarice practiced their religions faithfully, although on close parallel paths, creating a stable mixed marriage at a time when mixed marriages were regarded more askance than they are now. Senator Rodda was thoughtful about his religion, but not doctrinaire. These remarks on human freedom relative to God were presented at the Oak Park Methodist Church in Sacramento.

—TB

To be Free: With God or Without

Oak Park Methodist Church

August 22, 1971

Senator Albert S. Rodda

Is man free, and if so, in what way is he free?

Many responses have been made to this question. This morning, I will consider three.

First, let us review the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th century German philosopher.

Nietzsche made the oft-quoted statement that “God is dead!” He meant that since God was no longer a force in man’s life, God was dead—killed by man! With God dead, man was emancipated—free— free to be himself or to find his own “being.” The question which must be asked is: How did Nietzsche expect that man would use his freedom—his emancipation from God?

Nietzsche saw liberated man as one driven by a “Will to Power,” and it was through power that man would achieve his true self or his being, by becoming a superman!

This conclusion offers a frightening prospect for man. Since man has conquered nature and can unleash to his purposes the destructive energy of which reality is made, the Nietzschian view of man is disturbing. Even in the middle of the 19th Century, Nietzsche, in reflecting on the consequences of his thought, was driven to anguish and terror. Today the prospects for man, so conceived, are even more dreadful.

One can only conclude that if God is dead and man is free and freedom is expressed in a will to power, man must restore God to life; otherwise, chaos will be man's fate and the Biblical Revelation will be fulfilled!

The behavior of man in the 20th Century, as one reflects on the human condition, is not reassuring. It seems to provide more evidence to prove that Nietzsche was right than that he was wrong and the serious contemplation of the new superman described by Nietzsche evokes despair and hopelessness!

The freedom of man is viewed differently, however, by Jean-Paul Sartre; although he, too, proclaims the existence of a Godless Universe. with God dead, Sartre argues that human life is meaningless and absurd!

His is the atheistic existentialist view. There is no God; man is free; there are no values; man is absurd!

A brilliant contemporary thinker, who fought as a partisan in the French Resistance during the Nazi's occupation of France, Sartre writes bitterly of evil. He encountered evil in the Nazi occupation of France.

The evil in Hitlerism was its justification of any behavior, however depraved, as long as it resulted in power. The Nazi interpretation and application of Nietzsche's “Will to Power” led to Dachau and Auschwitz. Sartre witnessed the presence of the Nazi in France; he saw Hitler as evil; he became convinced that evil exists in the world. He concluded that evil cannot be redeemed!

But, concluded Sartre, man, who lives in a Godless world of evil and of absurdity, possesses at least his freedom! It, however, is only a limited freedom—the freedom to say “no!” This is the ultimate freedom through which man fulfills himself or achieves his Being as a Man! The freedom to say “no!”

Sartre sees the essence of life as negative—the freedom to confront evil and to say “no”; man may say: “I will not accept an evil that cannot be redeemed.”

Strangely, this Sartrean view—of a universe, empty of God and pervaded with evil—produced a conviction in Sartre which ultimately developed a close kinship with the “Will to Power” of Frederick Nietzsche. To Sartre the practical meaning of life was the struggle to overcome Evil; in this struggle man fulfilled himself; outside the struggle there was no true being or opportunity for human fulfillment.

The logic of this reasoning can be disturbing, however, since the freedom to say “no” may lead to a Nietzschean “Will to Power.” He who must say “no” might say “no” against his own nature. William Barrett in The Irrational Man reasons that the freedom to say “no” to evil in a context of life void of God and values might be a “rootless freedom”—a “demonical freedom!”

Sartre is a genuine humanitarian—a liberal revolutionary and a man of action; he can be trusted with the exercise of the freedom to resist evil—to say “no!” But the same freedom which he affirms could be experienced by a man of evil will. One can visualize the consequence. Absent a God and eternal ethical values—what is the assurance that freedom will not be abused? Sartre's view of man may merge into nothing more than a Nietzschean “Will to Power!” which produces a race of evil supermen!

Something better is required to respond to the needs of man! The consequences inherent in the proposition that God is dead, killed by man, and that man is free, are not reassuring.

Frankly, the atheism of these men is so stark and the consequences are so disturbing that its contemplation must turn one toward religion and God. This leap to God brings to mind the thinking of Soren Kierkegaard, an early 19th Century Dane, who viewed the mystery of human existence quite differently.

In contrast to Nietzsche, Kierkegaard chose to be a Christian. God, in his view, was not dead and throughout his life he constantly struggled to affirm his personal faith with all of his passion and being. His sole objective in life became that of realizing the “truth of Christ in his own life.”

His primary objective, as a writer, was to define what is meant to be a Christian. His primary purpose, in his personal life, was to “be a Christian.” For Kierkegaard, it was the only way of being a man or of becoming fulfilled.

Desirous of contributing to the betterment of mankind, he speculated as follows:

“So there I sat and smoked my cigar until I lapsed into thought. Among other thoughts I remember these:

“You are going on,” I said to myself, “to become an old man, without being anything, and without really undertaking to do anything.

“On the other hand, wherever you look about you, in literature and in life, you see the celebrated names and figures, the precious and much heralded men who are coming into prominence and are much talked about, the many benefactors of the age who know how to benefit mankind by making life easier and easier. And what are you doing?”

Here my soliloquy was interrupted, for my cigar was smoked out and a new one had to be lit. So I smoked again, and then suddenly this thought flashed through my mind:

“You must do something, but inasmuch as with your limited capacities it will be impossible to make anything easier than it has become, you must, with the same humanitarian enthusiasm as the others, undertake to make something harder.”

This notion pleased me immensely... For when all combine in every way to make everything easier, there remains only one possible danger, namely, that the ease becomes so great that it becomes altogether too great; then there is only one want left, though it is not yet a felt want, when people will want difficulty.

Out of love for mankind, and out of despair at my embarrassing situation, seeing that I had accomplished nothing and was unable to make anything easier than it had already been made, and moved by genuine interest in those who make everything easy, I conceived it as my task to create difficulties.

Pursuant to his determination to make a contribution by creating difficulties, Kierkegaard wrote penetratingly about human behavior, which he categorized into three types: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious.

The aesthetic life was one devoted to the enjoyment of the pleasure of the moment and to the avoidance of the unpleasant. The child is the perfect and complete aesthete, existing always in the immediacy and simplicity of the moment. Some adults retain this childlike mode of behavior and never mature. They respond to life simply and live for the moment. In the end their lives sink into despair, as the flowers that delight their lives fade.

Materialists and hedonists share this existence, as do purely abstract thinkers and speculators, who are absorbed in developing systems of philosophy and theology.

The former are consumers of things and events; the latter are analysts and abstractionists. Both are only spectators—observers of life who are detached from genuine life experience.

The aesthetic quality of living is shared by all, but some never advance beyond it—remaining childlike and uninvolved.

When one becomes involved in a choice between values, one advances to the ethical life. By the courageous act of reaching a decision, one begins to live ethically, and with a potential for living authentically!

Since ethics involves abstract reasoning about good and bad, and right and wrong, it can remain outside of life—it can be and often is merely the description of philosophical or theological systems and nothing more.

A philosopher or a theologian can succeed in constructing a complete and logical system of values and yet carry on life in a childish manner, living for the moment. Kierkegaard held that an ethical system without decision or commitment was sheer paper currency without backing. For him, the meaningful life was in living beyond the ethical. It was the religious life, the life that is involved in the uniqueness of the individual—you and I— our singleness in the world. It goes beyond mere abstraction. It is a life that is real in the sense that it transcends the easy and mechanical observance of a morality, simply because it is socially desirable—or socially approved or traditional.

The genuinely religious man must on occasion, in “fear and trembling,” break with the ordinary moral code. If we recall, Nietzsche affirmed the right of the superman to break any moral rule in order to achieve power. Kierkegaard, however, differed dramatically. The individual, he argued, must break with the ethical, but not for the reason of a callous, arrogant seeking for power.

Kierkegaard justified the religious act of moral transgression on the grounds of only one principle. The one justification, which was the core to his Christian faith, was that the individual is higher than the universal principle or the collective morality. The abstract principle cannot, he reasoned, comprehend the uniqueness of the one—the individual, in his concreteness. There are occasions, therefore, when the individual must act alone—in a kind of solitary “suspension of the ethical.”

The average person faces the necessity of making the difficult choice only occasionally and since/whatever the decision, some evil will result, most individuals avoid the necessity of choosing, or of deciding for themselves. They embrace a principle—a moral code—and by applying it rigorously and with inflexibility, escape the real moment of truth in their lives. The rigorous observance of the ethics of the day or of the crowd may provide a convenient cop-out, for no moral blueprint covers all of life's circumstances. There are times when we must choose in “fear and trembling” from within ourselves, not from outside ourselves. Those are the occasions when we stand alone.

The Bible states that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

The “fear and trembling” of modern man in choosing is the beginning of self and of self-actualization. And eventually all human beings must cope with the despair which embraces life when ultimately they confront the absurdity of existence.

Kierkegaard believed that at the moment of confrontation of the absurdity of life any response other than the religious was inadequate at best and at worst demonical.

A subjective thinker, Kierkegaard saw truth as inward! The true religion he argued was not simply a system of theology, which possessed the logic of a geometric theorem. To him, religion meant “to be religious.”

Religion must penetrate and permeate our existence, or it is nothing.

A theologian may know theology, but if in his heart God may have never lived or may have died, he cannot be regarded as religious.

An illiterate peasant, unable to state a simple religious creed, may be deeply religious. If he “is in the truth,” people will clearly recognize it simply because of his way of life—his living! A religious person is not a “sorter of creeds”—he is a whole man. His living is the truth—it is the way of the spirit. Kierkegaard reasoned, therefore, that the true Christian follows the law of his being, which is the “way of Christ.”

He argued that without Christ the Christian religion is empty and evil.

Christianity, he vigorously insisted, must concern the individual himself—not pure doctrine, creed, and theological abstraction.

Kierkegaard's thought remains a challenge to secular society, to institutionalized religion, and to the atheistic existential charge that life is absurd!

Christians, through faith in Christ, through living the Christian life in the context of the scriptures, can transform their own lives and influence the lives of those about him.

The difficulty that Kierkegaard created was the challenge of the Christian to be a true Christian—a religious man! There can be no greater difficulty; it goes beyond living for the moment or living according to the code of the day.

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to work humbly with your God?”

When two Christians meet, a field of spirituality must come into existence; it if does not, one must ask: Are they truly Christians?

Tuition at the University of California (1970)

2007-08-16T23:30:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: Paying for a university education

Ronald Reagan insisted on two things upon taking office as governor of California. One was the head of Clark Kerr, president of the University of California. The second was the imposition of tuition on UC students. Kerr was soon gone, replaced by Charles Hitch. The Regents of the University of California also agreed to impose education fees for the first time on the university's students. Excuses were made that the new fees were not really the adoption of tuition, but Senator Rodda insisted that the fees were exactly that—a violation of the university's long history of tuition-free public education. Tuition meant payment for education, while student fees were presumably payment for incidentals. The line between the two concepts was being blurred—or even erased.

Once the fees were in place, it naturally followed that the Regents could not resist raising them periodically. In this paper, prepared by Sen. Rodda to provide information to his Democratic colleagues, the Senator refers to a pending proposal to set student fees at $600 per year by 1971-72. By way of comparison, University of California undergraduate fees were $8129 in 2005-06.

Sen. Rodda also refers to the community college system in this paper. Tuition was later imposed on community college students, an explicit tuition system based on a payment per academic unit. Tuition-free higher education in California belongs to history, not the present. Rodda was prescient in his warning.

—TB

Tuition: Considerations of Interest to Democratic Legislators

March 1, 1970

The escalation of the tuition by the Regents on February 20, dramatically reveals that we are now in what I have described as the “era of the politics of tuition.” It is no longer possible semantically to argue that we have not adopted the tuition principle in California because of the Regents' action and we can expect tuition consistently to be more a matter of budgetary consideration in the future and we can expect, I suppose, an even greater escalation in tuition.

The following figures are rather interesting: In 1956 the fee at the University of California for a semester was $42 or $84 a year; in 1957 the fee went to $50 per semester or $100 a year; in 1958 it went to $60 a semester or $120 a year; in 1962 it went to $75 a semester or $150 a year; in 1964 it went to $110 a semester or $220 per year: and in 1968 it went to $107 a quarter or $160 a semester for a total of $320 per year.

Fees, as between 1957 and 1970, increased, therefore, from $84 to $320, which means that they have increased four hundred percent, which is certainly much greater than inflationary increases over that period of time.

The Regents acted on February 20 to provide for an increase in the admission fee for 1970-71 over present levels in the amount of $150 a year or $50 a quarter, which means that the fee will be $320 plus $150—about $470 per year. In 1971-72 the fees will go up an additional $150 and reach the neighborhood of $600, having doubled over a two-year period. This is for undergraduates. Because of Reagan amendments to the modified Hitch proposal, graduate students will pay an additional amount which will be $180 the first year and $360 more the second year, which means grad students will be paying in 1970-71 about $480 per year and in 1971-72 about $660 per year.

Incidentally, no provision, as a consequence of the action taken by the Regents, was made with regard to low-income students, although the increase in revenues which will amount to about $7 million, as I understand it, will go to the University to be used for the purposes determined by the University.

Statements were made to the effect that every effort would be taken to utilize current scholarship and fellowship funds to take care of needy students. But, no specific action was taken, and, of course, this means that the students must take a means test. to obtain the additional money necessary to attend State College.

A $200 tuition increase produces $9 million. Since the University increased the tuition to $150, the state will be saved about $7 million. With a California population of 20,000,000 that is about 459 per person per year. The increase, however, will adversely affect the ability of students to attend because they must project the increased costs into the future. A student contemplating entering the University this year, who financially is a marginal student, will have to have $150 more income next year, $300 in 1971-72, and if there is no increase thereafter an additional $300 for two years in order to achieve an AB degree. This means that his increased expenses will be $1,050 over four years.

If the recent history of the tuition increases mean anything, a student can be assured that the tuition will be in excess of this amount by 1972-73 because the tuition, which is now a matter of budgetary politics, will, I am certain, be escalated.

A critical fact that is important is that Section 23753 of the Education Code provides that State Colleges may not levy a tuition in excess of $25 per year or $12.50 per semester. Out-of-State residents and foreign students pay tuition fees. They also pay the regular fees which the resident student pays.

The difference between a fee and a tuition fee is that a fee is used for non-instructional purposes—it is for student services such as parking, materials, medical health care, etc. It also is for student association buildings and things of that nature. There is every reason to think that the State Colleges, which now have combined fees of $158 a year, are in violation of the law. Certainly, if the State Colleges raise the fee to match the University's increase in tuition, the State Colleges, in my view will be in violation of the law because some of that money will certainly be used for educational purposes.

The point that I am making is that before the State Colleges can increase the State College tuition to match the level of the University's increase, the language in the Education Code will have to be changed. This will take an urgency clause if it is going to be put into effect for 1970-71. If this change is not achieved, it seem to me that there will be an immeasurable diversion of students from the University to the State Colleges next year. There is quite possibly likely to be, therefore, another crisis in enrollment, at the State Colleges, because we probably will budget adequately to take care of the University of California enrollments, but we will underestimate and under-budget the State Colleges.

The critical factor at the State Colleges is instructional staffing. In a couple of years the problem will be one of building—libraries, cafeterias, faculty offices, and things of that nature. Right now it is primarily a matter of staffing.

The Governor does not want lines of students denied admission to the State Colleges or the University next year. Every effort will be made to stop this, but I think that it will be very difficult to accomplish such a goal because of the confused picture with regard to tuition.

Incidentally, if students are diverted from the University, many will go to the community colleges as well as to State Colleges.

The community colleges, under the law, must accept all students with a high school diploma and all who are 18 years of age or over who can benefit from an education. This is the open-door policy and, of course, the law imposes the non-tuition principle on the community colleges.

The community college situation is interesting.

At the time the Master Plan was developed, the community colleges were funded by the State at about 29% of educational costs, or 29¢ out of a dollar. The Master Plan provided that, by 1975, 50,000 students who normally would attend the University and the State Colleges would be diverted to the community colleges. In order to assist the community colleges in funding this increased enrollment, it was agreed that state financial support of the community colleges would be established at 45% and that there would be state contribution to capital outlay.

Today the state has met its commitment with regard to capital outlay and 50% of community college construction, statewide, is paid for by the State. A state bond issue, which I authored in 1968, provided $60 million for community colleges. About $45 million of the bond issue is still available, although the bonds cannot be sold because of the bond market.

Additional money was provided for capital outlay in Assembly Bill 606, 1969 General Session, for community colleges. With regard to the educational expense, however, the state has increased its level of support for community colleges only to about 33%—well below the 45% level of the Master Plan. sixty-seven percent of the statewide education costs of community colleges are borne by the taxpayer.

Many community colleges are at or near their tax ceiling and it is very difficult for a community college to pass an override tax. This means that if the Governor does not substantially increase the support level for community colleges in 1970, the State's contribution will drop probably to the neighborhood of 30%. Local support will, thus, increase to the neighborhood of 70%.

Remember that the community colleges must enroll all of those students who are qualified who offer themselves for enrollment. This fact of law quite possibly could lead to serious difficulties if districts are not successful in passing overrides, or at least it may bring many up to their maximum tax ceilings. It will definitely produce a crisis in community college education and will shift an increasing burden of higher education on to the community colleges and the local taxpayer.

In summary, the thing that must be pointed out is that the principle of no tuition was abandoned by the Board of Regents in spite of the fact that they describe the increase as a fee. The increase was so substantive that the semantics of language cannot conceal the fact that a University tuition is in effect. We now are in the era of tuition. We have abandoned a 101-year tradition which has been supported by fourteen Republican Governors and seven Democratic Governors. The Regents no longer have a principle of no-tuition to stand on. They will have to bargain on the tuition question and tuition will now become a part of the budgetary debates and deliberations each year. These are some statistics on education: In 1968 out of 1,000 students who entered school, 800 will graduate from high school and of the 800, 540 will enroll in some institution of higher education as freshmen, of the 540 who enroll as freshmen, 250 will complete more than the first year. Of these 250, 100 will obtain baccalaureate degrees.

Obviously we need to increase the persistence rate in the field of higher education, since our society requires a higher quality of education on the part of its citizens. Anything which increases the cost of education tends to lower the persistence rate. This is one adverse effect of tuition.

Incidentally, only 10% of the students complete sixteen years of education or achieve the AB without interruption. Tuition will further prolong the time required for an education through the AB.

One-half of the families in this state have incomes below $8,000; 23% of the University of California students have family incomes below $8,000; 14% of the State College students have family incomes below $6,000, and 4% below $4,000. Unless student financial aids are increased, the increased tuition will cause poor students to drop out of college:

10% of the nation's population is in California, but California has received 40% of the research money from the federal government. This statistic indicates the importance of higher education in California to our economy.

Arguments against tuition:

Adversely affects low-income families, therefore, has a more drastic impact on the minorities.
Will shift a greater portion of the cost of higher education to the local property tax, because of a transfer of students to community colleges.
Will reduce the access to education in graduate areas exclusively assigned to the University (medicine, law, architecture, and veterinary medicine and doctoral programs in all subject matter disciplines).
Will adversely affect California's competitive position in higher education which has made the State outstanding in technology and research.

The race between education and catastrophe (1966/1972)

2007-08-16T19:00:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: A graduation speech

In 1966, Senator Rodda was invited to give the commencement speech for the graduation ceremonies at Phineas Banning Adult School in Wilmington, a city in southern California. Sen. Rodda took the opportunity to speak on one of his favorite topics: the power of education to preserve and improve our lives. It was a cautionary speech, acknowledging both the increasing impact of technology on employment opportunities and the relative neglect of the important of vocational education. The dark tone may have derived from the Senator's concerns over the upheaval and pessimism of the 1960s.

Rodda kept a copy of his Banning Adult School remarks in his files. This text is from the 1972 revision of the original 1966 speech. He probably updated it slightly to keep it more current, as he would often send copies of his papers in response to inquiries from constituents and reporters. However, there is no indication that he ever used the text again in a spoken presentation.

—TB

Graduation Ceremonies
Phineas Banning Adult School
Wilmington, California

Senator Albert S. Rodda

June 16, 1966
(Revised on March 29, 1972)

Today, we live in an age in which H. G. Wells' dictum that human survival is “a race between education and catastrophe” is no longer quoted as pious rhetoric. It is regarded as a frightening possibility full of a terror which derives from the known potential for destruction of thermonuclear weapons. The destructive power of the H Bomb is so vast that it almost defies description; and clearly establishes the fact that resort to total war by Russia and the United States will destroy mankind and civilization.

The destructive capability of a thermonuclear way may be judged from the following description of the results of an imagined explosion of a 20 megaton bomb over Los Angeles:

“It will create a crater one-half mile long and 250 feet deep; it will produce complete destruction over an area three miles in diameter, severe blast damage over an area eight miles in diameter and moderate damage over an area twelve miles from the point of the explosion of a diameter of twenty-four miles.”

Incidentally, modern H Bombs are 100 megaton size—5 times as destructive.

His awareness of the horrible destructiveness of modern war prompted Bertram Russell, the English philosopher, to suggest, in a quiet commentary, that it is too late to educate the young people for a peaceful world; and that, if we are to have peace, we must concentrate on the education of adults. It was Russell's conviction that the critical decisions which will determine the fate of civilization were being made every day and that any “breakthrough” in organizing the world for peace must be achieved immediately by the generation in power.

The urgency of the world situation, therefore, in Russell's view, mandated the education of adults in the means of achieving a peaceful world.

Although Russell's statement was made over a decade ago, it is no less valid today, for the imminence of total war has not been removed by the passage of time; if anything, its proximity is even closer. There must, therefore, be a continuing education of adults in those areas of knowledge which impinge upon the issue of war and peace. And this must be a never ending activity—carried on through the public forum, formal classes in adult education, educational television, public discussion in the journals and newspapers of our time, and in the institutions of higher education and the chambers of our law-making bodies.

If education for a peaceful world is a major responsibility of education, it is not the only one. For there are other responsibilities worthy of our attention.

Education has acquired a new dimension in recent times. This is a result primarily of the changes which have taken place in our society and which continue to take place. The condition of change is summed up in the words “automation” and “cybernation.”

Automation is defined as “the automatically .controlled operation of production which takes the place of human effort.”

Cybernation is “the use of mechanical-electrical communication systems to supplement or replace brainpower in problem solving or analysis.” Everywhere in our society, in government, as well as industry, there is a high rate of substitution of machines and computers for human skills and human intelligence.

The result, of course, is a dynamic society characterized by a rapidly changing technology.

The general effect is satisfactory; the productivity of workers increases, costs of production are reduced, the prices of commodities are lowered, larger quantities of goods and services are made available, and new products are put on the market. All of this is progress and it must be entered on the positive or benefit side of the ledger.

To illustrate the benefits which flow from the computerization of society one can suggest quite seriously that in the absence of the computer, social security, Medicare, and industrial fringe benefit programs would involve so much unmanageable paper work that their cost would be prohibitive and that in the absence of automation many products could not be produced at marketable prices and that in the absence of the electronic brain, the problems involved in the mastery of outer space would be beyond solution; and finally, that, without “systems analysis,” the efficient planning and management of industry would be greatly impaired.

On the negative side of the ledger there are, however, the adverse effects of technological progress. Persistent technological innovation, for example, produces a continuous imbalance between the demand and supply for labor skills. The imbalance is characterized by a surplus of old skills, for which there is no longer a need and a simultaneous unfulfilled demand for new and highly specialized technical capabilities.

This fact of economic life impresses itself upon the worker in the form of the persistent threat of job obsolescence and unemployment and upon the industrialist in the form of labor shortage and unmet product demand.

The frustrations experienced by both management and labor have come into focus as educational problems of a serious and growing significance. The result has been immediately apparent in its impact on the schools.

First, many conventional programs in vocational and technical education have been made useless and obsolete.

Second, the schools have been placed in a position of having to build more flexibility into the vocational curriculum through the rapid introduction of new courses and the serious modification of old ones.

Third, in response to the changing occupational pattern, close cooperation between the schools and the local community has developed as a practical means of providing the schools with a vocational and technical curriculum better designed to meet the community's changing labor market.

Fourth, the schools have launched a vigorous attack against illiteracy as a vital part of the war on poverty and unemployment, and, finally, a tremendous effort is being made to reduce the school dropout rate and to continue teenagers in school long enough for them to acquire either a professional, vocational or technical education.

The educational response to change and innovation in the economy must be the education of our youth more practically and for a longer period of time and the training and retraining of increasing numbers of adults. It means that education no longer can terminate at the 12th Grade or even during the employment life of the adult worker.

If we are to meet this education challenge, the cost in tax dollars will be extraordinary and will steadily increase. And yet we must meet it, if we are to provide the economy with an adequate supply of employable labor—young and old.

The criticalness of the employment situation can be established by the following data:

For example, in 1968, of the young men and women in the United States under 22 years of age, who terminated their education before high school graduation, over one million were unemployed. In today's economy more than thirty percent of high school dropouts are unemployed and even high school graduates average more than fifteen percent in unemployment.

The impact of unemployment is, as these figures indicate, especially harsh upon the under-educated or the vocationally untrained. As time passes, the situation will become more serious. The role of such citizens in our economy will be drastically reduced. Robert Theobold, expert on cybernetics and automation, emphasized this problem with a percent of the population, with the aid of automatic, computer-controlled machines, “will produce all the goods and services necessary to clothe, feed and run our society.” If you believe this a ridiculous idea, reflect upon the fact that today fewer than 200 men produce 90% of the electric lights manufactured in the United States.

Another set of statistics, however, reveals a different trend—a growing demand for the technically and professionally educated person. For example, it is estimated that, from 1965 to 1975, the demand for trained workers in professional and technical areas will increase by sixty-five percent; in managerial skills, thirty-two percent; in clerical activities, forty-five percent; and in service work, fifty-one percent.

These data indicate a rising demand for talent which will not be met unless the educational attainment of our citizenry is upgraded. When the regular schools fail to prepare for employment, or shifts in technology make obsolete and unnecessary, certain types of labor it is the responsibility of special occupational and adult schools to provide opportunities for the continued education, training and retraining of our citizens. This role is very vital if the labor supply is to adjust to labor demand. It means the creation of a quality labor supply.

I am saying, in effect, that education, while continuing to educate for citizenship, recreation and leisure, for personal satisfaction and for the professions must expand in breadth and depth in technical and vocational education.

Its major role in the future may very well be education in (1) English and reading skills, (2) vocational and technological skills, with emphasis on the latter, and, (3) preparation for effective employment in the personal services, an area of employment certain to expand with the growth of automation, as well as, of course, (4) collegiate professional education—the importance of which there is no doubt in the public mind.

What I have been saying poses a problem for a highly technical society which stated simply is: Does the population possess the native intelligence and neuro-muscular skills in sufficient quantity to meet the economy's need or demand for highly educated, technically trained individuals? This, of course, is not a problem with which I wish to deal tonight. My concern is with the crucial. necessity of utilizing as fully and as efficiently as possible the human intelligence and capabilities which we possess.

Great progress is being made by many local school districts and County Offices of Education in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Alameda Counties and many others.

Under great handicaps, the school districts and County Offices are educating increasing numbers of youth and adults in meaningful vocational and technical skills. For example, nineteen percent of the high school graduates in the Sacramento City Unified School District are graduated from the evening adult high school. Certainly, this is a significant statistic, and I know that it is duplicated in other urban areas.

But a realistic evaluation of the total picture, however, is disquieting. It shows a hesitancy on the part of the public or of those in education to develop vocational and adult education on a scope necessary to meet the demands of the time. School facilities generally consist of day-school buildings given over to adult education at night, or old structures no longer adequate for day-time education; inadequate visual aids and equipment, and limited auxiliary educational services in guidance and library materials.

The development of a massive comprehensive type of adult and vocational and technical education, as I envision it, is not, in my opinion, imminent; it will inevitably come, since time and circumstances will mandate it. By this, I mean that the social and economic requirements of our rapidly changing society will inevitably demonstrate the need. However, the situation today actually is not encouraging; in fact, it is in some quite discouraging.

The theme of my remarks, however, is not the decline of vocational, technical and adult education, but rather its growing significance and the importance of a greater public appreciation and understanding of its role. With understanding will come public support and with public support will come the political pressure necessary to institute adequate programs.

I conclude by emphasizing that although high school vocational education and adult education are a significant aspect of the educational process, they now enjoy a stepchild status, but that the “contextual imperative”—or the demands of our dynamic-changing society—will bring these kinds of education the public understanding and support they need. When this occurs, those engaged in such educational programs will have the tools necessary to meet the challenge. The challenge is the continuing education of the citizenry—for more effective involvement in the community, more productive involvement in the economy, and more meaningful living and, therefore, greater personal fulfillment.

Collective Bargaining in California (1975)

2007-08-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: The Story of SB 160

Albert Rodda's best-known legislation is Senate Bill 160—usually simply cited as “the Rodda Act”—which established collective bargaining for California's public school teachers.

This undated document from the Senator's files contains a record of his extemporaneous remarks on the significance of his legislation, so it is most likely from the latter part of 1975, when SB 160 was signed by the Governor Reagan. There is no indication of the venue in which the Senator delivered his speech.

—TB

Collective Bargaining in California

Breakthrough in California

(Extemporaneous Remarks)

Senator Albert S. Rodda

My purpose tonight is briefly to provide some historical background and perhaps make some comments about the critical issues which are affected by the collective bargaining legislation. I'll begin my presentation with reference to the original Winton Act. I was in the Legislature when the Winton Act was passed, and I voted against it although, as a freshman senator in 1958, I was committed to collective bargaining for teachers. I had been at one time president of Local #31 of the California Federation of Teachers in Sacramento. This involvement had influenced my thinking on this issue.

As a teacher, I was of the opinion—having had some experience in matters affecting the professional status of teachers—that they should have an opportunity to negotiate in a more meaningful way with administrators and school board members. So I was supportive of the Winton Act in concept and of collective bargaining in principle. But I voted against the Winton Act on the Floor because of the manner in which those who were on the so-called negotiating council were chosen. There was no exclusive negotiation and no exclusive representation, and in the Senate the word “confer”—not even confer in good faith—was substituted by amendment for the word “negotiate,” which was contained in the Assembly version of the bill. So we ended up with a law which provided for a “negotiating council” which merely conferred and which did not provide for exclusive representation; so I voted “no.”

We are familiar with the fact that the Winton Act was not implemented very well in some districts and, as a consequence, in about 1970, Senator Newton Russell, then Assemblyman, introduced a bill which would significantly have amended the Winton Act. The bill was sponsored, as I recall, by the California School Boards Association. I introduced a bill which was sponsored by the author. We finally reached a consensus and the Russell bill became law. My bill was dropped; although the bills were amended so that they were identical, and the Winton Act was, thus, amended by the Russell-Rodda Act. So, it is the Winton-Russell Act which was amended by SB 160.

The Russell Act was substantive in some respects. In the first place, it contained a definition of impasse. And it introduced language into the Winton Act requiring the parties to confer in a conscientious effort to reach an agreement, which is a little bit better and stronger than just the meet-and-confer provision. There was no written contract, but there was provision for mediation; there was provision for factfinding, but not for publication of the recommendation of the factfinder; so even that legislation fell short of collective bargaining. The Russell Act did contain the same provisions relating to the strike as did the original Winton Act—reference to the Labor Code which courts had interpreted to deny the right of concerted action or the strike—but there were no provisions for a written contract and, of course, no provision for exclusive representation. The absence of a contract provision became an issue in the Los Angeles teacher's strike, which occurred about the same time the Russell Act went into effect.

At that time, the California Teachers Association—and please don't interpret my remarks with reference to any organization as being polarized or biased—did not favor collective bargaining for teachers, while the CFT did. The following year, however, CTA changed its historic position of opposition to one of support. My recollection is that in the same year Senator Dymally authored a substantive collective bargaining bill which was sponsored by both the CTA and the CFT. It was legislation that would have covered employees in the public education system from Kindergarten through the university; the bill was considered in the Senate Education Committee and died there. I voted against it because I believed that we should try to make the newly enacted Russell amendments work.

There was a great deal of momentum being generated for legislation because of the CTA support of collective bargaining. The rivalry between the two organizations, the CTA and the CFT, for collective bargaining legislation for public employees in the public education sector became very intense. In addition, the economies imposed upon higher education by Governor Reagan had the effect of intensifying union activity within the two systems of higher education, especially in the State University and Colleges System, where the whole concept of collegiality had not developed to the extent it had on the University of California campuses. As a result, the California State University faculty moved toward an approach to the problem of employee-employer relations which was more oriented toward the union model—the collective bargaining model. Looking at the membership lists of teacher organizations during those critical years, you'll find that they showed rather dramatic increases, and that fact of life created more pressure. The CFT had long supported collective bargaining, which meant that the School Administrators and the School Board members were fighting a rather difficult and almost losing battle on this issue.

Following Senator Dymally's effort, Senator Moscone became involved as principal author of legislation in 1973. The bill was SB 400 and it included within its coverage employees in public education from Kindergarten through the university system. There were five critical issues: (1) the inclusion of the two segments of higher education; (2) definition of scope; (3) language with reference to strike; (4) the agency shop; and (5) management rights. When the Moscone bill was under consideration, supported by teachers in all segments of public education, the Administrators and the School Board members testified to the effect that it lacked certain language they thought was important and that the language contained in the bill was too far-reaching in some respects. Their concern was the absence of language with reference to strike, the wide-open definition of scope of bargaining, provision for the agency shop, and the lack of the provision with respect to management rights. And, of course, the bill was opposed by the Regents of the University of California and the Board of Trustees of the California State University and Colleges System. I told Senator Moscone, when the bill was presented to the Senate Education Committee, to sit down and try to work out a compromise.

The bill came back before the Senate Education Committee the following week, but there was no compromise. The Administrators and School Board members were not the only uncompromising individuals. The uncompromising people were also the teachers, because they had political muscle in the Legislature and they knew, in a sense, that this piece of legislation would not become law because Governor Reagan would not sign it under any circumstances. I voted for the bill. It went to the Governor and he vetoed it.

In 1972, I had chaired Senate Education Committee interim hearings on this subject, but when the Moscone bill was under consideration in 1973, I did not introduce legislation because I wanted a compromise or consensus piece of legislation to be considered seriously and I knew what was going to happen with respect to the Moscone legislation. I had been in politics long enough to know what the scene would be. I knew that no one would think about a compromise bill; so why waste my time? In that year, however, I assigned Mr. John Bukey to do the principal work in reference to collective bargaining. Mr. Jerry Hayward and Mr. John Bukey, consultants to the Senate Education Committee, and I met in my constituency with School Board members and School Administrators at their request, and they said that they wanted to cooperate in an effort to improve the existing law, because they recognized it had significant deficiencies. I said, “Well, there's no point in my undertaking that kind of task unless you are willing to make some compromises; I have to work with the teacher groups; you're going to have to work with the teacher groups; we're all going to have to work together.” They agreed to such an arrangement.

At that time, I told John Bukey to study the findings of the interim committee hearing, to look at the legislative proposal made by the local group and to consult with the teachers in the various segments of education, and to try to develop a legislative consensus. The idea was to obtain comments from all parties so that I could affirm that all groups had had an opportunity to examine the legislation, to know what the intent was and, therefore, an opportunity to respond in a constructive way.

I stated at the time in response to the proposal made by the local group that “I was willing to introduce legislation and that I would try to achieve a compromise.” Incidentally, a politician may not use the word compromise; so I observed that I would struggle to achieve what we will call a “consensus.” So we strove for consensus and I said, “If I ever obtain consensus in the Senate, I will fight off amendments in the other House introduced by any element involved in this legislative activity which would change substantively the provisions of the legislation,” because if such amendments were made, they would create a bias and there would be no consensus. The bill, which was developed, pursuant to that effort, was SB 1857, and the year was 1974.

Fortunately, we did develop a degree of consensus and John Bukey and I conferred with people throughout the state on the legislation. The United Teachers of Los Angeles and the Classified School Employees of Los Angeles supported the bill despite the fact that it continued the Winton Act language with reference to the strike; despite the fact that it had a restricted definition of scope; and despite the fact that it did not include provision for the agency shop. They also accepted the management rights language. But some teachers challenged me that year with the charge that the bill was “an outright betrayal of teachers.” I argued that “there were some substantive improvements in the bill over existing law.” The bill provided for a written contract; for exclusive negotiation; and there were provisions for impasse negotiations, including mediation and public factfinding with recommendations. These were substantive changes, in my view, I observed. And I also commented on the positive aspects of the creation of a state board and the possibility of binding arbitration of contract, or “rights” disputes.

Meanwhile the courts were interpreting the Winton Act as a consequence of litigation and various decisions were handed down. These various interpretations were helpful in stimulating among the School Administrators and School Board members a desire for a law which could be interpreted in a uniform manner and which would make sense and improve negotiations with teachers. But they did not reach that position overnight. The leadership representing the School Boards and the School Administrators had to travel about the state educating their people and urging them to take a more positive attitude toward the legislation. And I commend them for that effort; without that effort I never could have obtained the kind of support for the bill that emerged. The teachers, from their perspective, were not totally negative, but the two principal organizations, the CTA and the CFT, remained in opposition throughout 1974.

I included the community college system in the original version of the bill. That was my decision. But I excluded the two segments of higher education—the University of California and the State University and Colleges System because there are differences in their internal governance which I did not fully comprehend, but which were of such a nature that they justified in my mind a separate bill or their inclusion in a bill which would cover all state employees. The inclusion of the community colleges was justified because of the similarity of governmental organization and finance to the Kindergarten-12 schools. They were, therefore, included despite the fact that there were problems with respect to the community college academic senates or faculty councils and their involvement in decisions affecting educational policy. I thought we could, with appropriate language, however, resolve that issue. But during the 1974 session I could not bring the community colleges into any kind of an agreement; so I personally deleted them from the legislation, which, of course, was SB 1857.

That legislation, the first product of the consensus effort, in the year 1974, moved to the Assembly, having the approval of the Senate, as I have described it to you, and having the support of the elements I mentioned—School Boards, School Administrators, UTLA and the Classified School Employees of Los Angeles, and a few chapters of CTA and the CFT local in San Francisco. It was opposed by the faculty of the University of California and the State University and Colleges System because they wanted a comprehensive bill; they wanted to be included and they were afraid that if a bill became law which excluded them, they would be left out permanently. SB 1857 failed in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee by one vote, after having been approved by the Assembly Education Committee.

The following year, 1975, I introduced SB 160, which was virtually identical to SB 1857. I did so with grave reservations because Speaker Moretti had introduced in 1974 a comprehensive bill, AB 1243, to include all public employees, which died in the Senate policy committee. And, in the same year, 1974, Senator Dills had introduced—and I had voted for— legislation (SB 32) to provide collective bargaining for local government employees. The Dills' bill was approved by the Senate and moved to the Assembly, where it perished because the Speaker was determined to enact a comprehensive bill. The significance of this action is that total emphasis was to be the enactment of comprehensive, not piecemeal legislation. The Moretti bill was assigned to interim hearings and I was on the joint committee that conducted the interim hearings. The entire intent was to achieve enactment of the comprehensive legislation. The Assembly leadership, Senator Dills, and the new Governor were committed to such action, as were all teacher organizations throughout 1975.

As the 1975 session proceeded, I accepted amendments to SB 160 with reference to the definition of scope which was modestly broadened, and I also introduced compromise language with reference to agency shop. And it is important to understand that an agency shop agreement under the provisions of the bill is a matter which may be negotiated. If a school board wishes to allow it, it may introduce such a provision into the contract; the issue would then have to be submitted to all affected employees for a vote. If the affected employees vote yes, it will be necessary for every employee in that group to pay a services rendered cost fee. The legislation does not provide, however, for compulsory membership; it does not require a union shop. Furthermore, if there is an organization which is competing with another organization to be the exclusive representative, and it loses the election, only the winning organization may have the right of dues deduction. If an organization does not want to compete for the right of exclusive negotiation, if it desires to be only educational organization, it may state that to be a fact with reference to its intent and purpose, and it may then have the right of dues deduction for its membership. This language has been objected to by some organizations because of their position of opposition to exclusive negotiation and to membership protection provisions.

After these amendments, especially the change in the definition of scope and agency shop were adopted, and also after the defeat of all of the comprehensive collective bargaining bills, the teacher groups, the CFT and CTA, began to be more responsive to the bill, SB 160.

During the entire negotiations the School Administrators and the School Boards had accepted the bill as amended and did everything they could to help achieve its enactment. It was because the bill finally had the support of the major elements of the educational community that I was able to achieve favorable action by the Legislature and place the bill on the Governor's desk.

We introduced one major amendment to satisfy the Governor; we changed the membership of the Board. The Board was to have had five members originally, but we reduced the membership to three, all of whom were to be appointed by the Governor. These individuals, it was recognized, might in the future function in the administration of a law affecting all public employees in the state; the Board membership could then be expanded. If that amendment had not been accepted, we would not now have a teacher collective bargaining law. I am convinced of that.

We all kept faith with each other, and it was that kind of conscientious effort that solved a very difficult problem. The School Boards and the School Administrators wanted the law because of the Winton Act's wide open definition of scope as interpreted by the courts; they wanted a negotiating council which spoke for the majority of the teachers; they wanted a vehicle in law which could be interpreted by a state board—the Educational Employment Relations Board—so that everyone concerned could know what the law was, what the standards were, and what the rules and regulations were statewide. And I think that the law has provisions which are for the benefit of the teachers, too. They recognized this; thus, they fully supported it.

The new law is no panacea; its success will largely be determined by the objectivity of its administration by the Board. The educational community has acted responsibly; the Legislature has acted responsibly; it is now the obligation of the Board to act responsibly.

A biographical sketch of Albert S. Rodda

2007-08-10T19:00:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: Biographical sketch

Albert Stanley Rodda's political career did not begin with his election to the California State Senate in the Democratic landslide year of 1958, nor did it end with his upset defeat for re-election in the Reagan landslide year of 1980. While his 22 years in the State Senate marked the apogee of his power and influence, they also fit neatly into the context of interests and activities that both preceded and followed his time in the State Capitol.

More than anything else, Albert Rodda was an educator. He held an earned doctorate in history and economics from Stanford University. At the time of his initial election to the Legislature, Rodda was a faculty member at Sacramento City College, teaching history and economics. He retained his teaching position (going on leave during semesters when the Legislature was in session) until the Legislature became a full-time job in 1966, at which point he retired from the college. Later, after leaving the State Senate, he became an adjunct professor at Sacramento State University, teaching his students from the perspective of an experienced and practical politician.

He was back in elective office soon after his departure from the Legislature, taking a seat in 1983 as a representative on the Los Rios Community College District board of trustees. The Los Rios district included Sacramento City College, which in 1980 had dedicated its big new administrative and classroom complex in his honor. He served two terms on the board, lending his deep knowledge of state education policy and school finance to the deliberations of the college trustees.

Rodda's focus on education had been reflected in his legislative career, during which he spent several years as chair of the Senate Education Committee. While over six hundred of his bills were enacted into law, for most knowledgeable people the words “Rodda Act” refer to the landmark measure (SB 160) that established the right of public school teachers to collective bargaining. SB 160 was born of the Senator's personal knowledge of the stark imbalance between the rights of teachers and the authority of administrators and school boards. Both he and his wife, Clarice Horgan Rodda, had been teachers in Sacramento high schools.

A generally quiet and introspective gentleman, Albert Rodda departed from many of the stereotypes we associate with politicians. He cared more about getting things done than getting credit, so many times he deferred to colleagues who were eager to take leading roles in addressing the popular issues of the day. When rival bills were introduced in the Legislature, the authors would jockey for position as they sought to get their proposals to the Governor's desk. Sometimes they'd find that Rodda was willing to drop his own bill so long as his particular concerns were addressed to his satisfaction in the rival legislation. Thus a colleague's name would appear as lead author on a senate bill presented to the Governor for his signature, but many of the words in it would have been crafted by Al Rodda.

Early life

Albert S. Rodda, Jr., was born in Sacramento on July 23, 1912. He and his older brother, Richard Rodda, lost their mother in the worldwide flu pandemic of 1918. Their father remarried and the boys were raised by a devoted stepmother. The Rodda brothers both ended up dedicating their long lives to the service of the people and institutions of Sacramento, Richard in journalism and Albert in politics and education.

An alumnus of Sacramento High School (Class of 1929) and Stanford University (Class of 1933), Albert became a high school teacher himself. It was at Grant Union High School that he met Clarice Horgan, whom he married in 1941. The entry of the U.S. into World War II after Pearl Harbor prompted Albert to enlist in the U.S. Naval Reserve, where he became a gunnery officer (lieutenant, junior grade). The Senator used to reminisce about his military service, humorously describing his gunnery assignment as the great secret scandal of his life.

From the scuttlebutt of the time, Albert had heard that the Navy was assigning to the Atlantic theater those enlistees who had the highest scores on the mathematics portion of the officer candidate exams. Those who passed with lower scores were going to the Pacific instead. As a newlywed with a young wife in California, Albert much preferred to serve his country in the Pacific theater of war, where it might be possible for him to see Clarice during occasional shore leaves. He pulled some of his punches on the math problems and did not score quite as high as he was capable. [The Senator used to tease me that, as a math teacher, I must be horrified that he had underachieved on a math test. —TB] Whatever the reason, Albert soon found himself serving as a gunnery officer in the Pacific.

Mustered out of the Naval Reserve in 1946, Albert Rodda became a faculty member at what was then known as Sacramento Junior College. He and his family lived in a home in Curtis Park (where he still resides today), right around the corner from the college campus. He returned to Stanford University for graduate studies, completing his Ph.D. in history and economics in 1951. (His dissertation was on the economic mind of the 18th century colonial American, and the Senator used to joke that he should never have given a copy to Ronald Reagan.)

Entering politics

Though a Republican in the forties, Rodda became active in Democratic politics and the labor movement during the fifties and began to contemplate running for the Legislature. He had already been elected president of Local 31 of the California Federation of Teachers and was confident in his leadership abilities. Rodda wondered whether he should seek a seat in the Assembly or Senate. His high profile in Sacramento Democratic circles, where he served on the central committee (part of the time as its chair), was a mixed blessing, since it led him into conflict with the biggest Democratic name in the county, conservative incumbent state Senator Earl Desmond. Sen. Desmond made no secret of his opposition to any Rodda candidacy, certain that Albert would upset the old-boy network in which Desmond was comfortably ensconced.

It was ironic, therefore, that it was Desmond's death in office that opened the way for Albert Rodda to succeed him in the Legislature. Rodda defeated Desmond's son in the 1958 special election to fill the remainder of the late senator's term. It was a good year for Democrats, Edmund G. Brown, Sr., winning the Governor's office for the first of two terms that transformed California public education, water policy, and infrastructure. Albert Rodda entered the Legislature just in time to participate in a dynamic new era in California politics.

Because Rodda was elected to a vacant seat, he was sworn into office immediately after his victory was confirmed. Two years later, in 1960, he was elected to a full four-year term in his own right, a feat he repeated in 1964. That term, however, was truncated. The U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the then-existing apportionment of the State Senate's 40 seats by counties (or groups of counties). The one-man/one-vote decision required the new districts to be essentially equal in population. All forty senators were forced to run in 1966. To restore the tradition whereby only half of the Senate came up for election in even-numbered years, half of the senators ran for two-year terms and the other half for the customary four-year terms. Albert ended up with another two-year term.

At the same time, the California legislature went from a part-time institution to a full-time governmental body. The Senator had to make a difficult decision. He decided to continue his legislative career, now a full-time job, and to step down from his faculty position at Sacramento City College. Albert was re-elected to his Sacramento-area district in 1968, 1972, and 1976. As his seniority grew, he attained the position of dean of the Senate (he was senior to Walter Stiern of Bakersfield by several weeks, having taken office in 1958 just before Stiern took his own seat).

Leadership

The Senator was approached at one point and asked to consider taking the position of president pro tempore of the Senate, but he was not interested in the top leadership position in the upper house. He knew that he had been approached as a compromise candidate, an acceptable alternative to more ambitious Democrats who had divided the house in their efforts to secure the leadership. (The position eventually went to James Mills of San Diego.)

Albert did, however, accept the chairmanship of the Senate Finance Committee under similar circumstances, again coming to the attention of his colleagues as an acceptable alternative to two powerful rivals. He picked up the gavel of Senate Finance with some reluctance because it required him to step down as chair of Senate Education, but he presided with panache over his new committee during his last four-year term of office.

Much of the Senator's effectiveness stemmed from the respect his fellow senators had for him. No one regarded Sen. Rodda as ambitious for personal political advancement, making him more widely trusted than senators who were actively positioning themselves for future statewide campaigns, judgeships, or post-elective jobs in the private sector. The Senator knew how to draw on his colleagues' trust in crafting successful legislation.

Landmarks

As noted, when people refer to “the Rodda Act” they are usually talking about SB 160, the Senator's landmark 1975 legislation that gave collective bargaining rights to public school teachers. There are, however, over six hundred other measures authored by Sen. Rodda that were enacted into state law. These ran the gamut of his constituents' concerns, but major areas of focus were education policy and fiscal policy. The Senator was a long-time member of the Senate Education Committee and was its chair for ten years. During his four years as chair of the Senate Finance Committee, Rodda was the lead author of the Senate version of the state budget bill and a member of each year's two-house conference committee that settled areas of disagreement between the Senate and Assembly versions of the budget.

Proposition 13 in 1978 was the big landmark in what many people called a "tax revolt." Sen. Rodda worked with his colleagues to soften the impact of 13's enormous reduction in property tax revenue. Their success, however, opened the way for 13's sponsors to argue that more tax reductions were needed. The follow-up was Proposition 9 in June 1980 to slash the personal income tax. Sen. Rodda worked diligently to analyze the impact of enactment of Proposition 9 and demonstrated that it would be disastrous, especially in the absence of a state surplus to cushion its effects. Rodda's analyses (issued in two separate documents) were a crucial weapon in the successful campaign to defeat Proposition 9. Although the June balloting was a great vindication of the Senator's position, with Proposition 9 losing by 61% to 39%, it also drew attention to him as an opponent of the tax-revolt leaders in the state. The political right drew a bead on him, and ammunition was plentiful. Some critics began to point to the number of votes Rodda missed during absences from the floor of the Senate; they neglected to point out that there was no way he could be present during the sessions that the Senate held concurrently with meetings of Senate Finance or the budget conference committee. Ironically, his success and seniority as a legislator would be used against him.

The election of 1980

Sen. Rodda was aware that many local politicians were hoping that he would retire in 1980 and create an opportunity for their advancement. Upon due consideration, Albert decided to run for another term. He did not want to set off a major primary battle among Democratic Party members, particularly in a census year. The new U.S. census would be followed by redistricting, making it important that the Democrats maintain their majorities and thus control the new district lines. Rodda was considered a sure bet for re-election by most observers (the nonpartisan California Journal rated his race “Safe Democratic”), although his district's demographics were moving in a more conservative direction.

The Senator himself was more concerned than most of his allies. He reluctantly approved a bigger campaign budget than in previous contests, sensing that 1980 might prove to be a difficult year for Democrats. He also drew a maverick Democrat as an opponent in the June primary. That was unusual. While Rodda beat him handily, he worried about the minority of Democrats who had declined to vote for him. In addition, the Republican nominee elected to oppose him was a young legislative assistant from Senator H. L. Richardson's office. Richardson was California's right-wing guru and an early pioneer of computer-generated campaign fund-raising and targeted mass mailing. Was Richardson's aide a sacrificial lamb, or did Richardson think they had a genuine chance at a major upset?

Just before the election, when Rodda was beginning to feel that his campaign had done enough to secure one more term, the Republican's secret weapon was unveiled. It seemed (to those of us on Rodda's staff, anyway) that Richardson had a political ally in the person of the Sacramento county district attorney. The DA indicted a state senator on charges of lewd and lascivious conduct with minors. The criminal charges were among the biggest local news stories in the days immediately preceding the election. The indicted legislator was Senator Alan Robbins of Van Nuys, but some thought the timing of the indictment indicated that the real target was Senator Albert Rodda of Sacramento. We received phone calls in the Senator's office denouncing him as a dirty old man. People were easily confused by the similarity of the names Alan Robbins and Albert Rodda. We also heard reports of a door-to-door whispering campaign in which people expressed concern about re-electing an accused sex criminal to the State Senate.

Ronald Reagan's landslide victory over Jimmy Carter sealed Albert Rodda's fate. Many good Democrats were swept out of office as the GOP turned out in force for the presidential election. The media's early call of a Reagan victory and Carter's immediate concession were depressing to West Coast candidates, who decried the president's acknowledgment of defeat while the polls were still open. On top of the local smear campaign, Carter's premature concession statement was probably the last straw. We noticed that Sen. Rodda had carried the absentee vote, a traditionally Republican portion of the electorate. Rodda's defeat was caused by last-minute events, because he won the early balloting. The final tally went against him by 123,844 to 115,795, a margin of barely 8,000 votes (3.4% of the total vote).

Enter Unruh

The shock waves from Rodda's defeat reverberated through the State Capitol. Many Democrats worried that a nasty new era of political campaigning had begun. (As we know now, they were right.) Soon, however, major political figures came courting. Governor Jerry Brown offered Rodda a seat on the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. Although the legislation establishing the ALRB bore another senator's name as lead author, Rodda had been deeply involved in the details of establishing collective bargaining rights for state farmworkers. Farm labor unionization was controversial and Gov. Brown decided that Albert could be a calming influence, as well as certain to obtain Senate confirmation from his erstwhile colleagues.

State Treasurer Jesse M. Unruh, however, had other ideas. The former Assembly Speaker had built the constitutional post of State Treasurer into a major state power center. Unruh was the statutory chairman of the new Commission on State Finance, the latest agency to be created within the Treasurer's Office. The new commission was charged with tracking and forecasting state revenues and expenditures. Its creation was evidence of Unruh's continuing influence over state government, since Gov. Brown signed the legislative measure despite the reservations of his Department of Finance (which correctly recognized the Commission on State Finance as an indication that neither the Legislature nor the State Treasurer was content to trust the budget numbers coming out of the Administration or the Legislative Analyst's Office). The new commission needed an executive officer who could put the agency on the map of state government. Unruh offered the position to Albert Rodda.

Rodda quickly recognized that he was likely to find much more job satisfaction in the Treasurer's Office than at the Agricultural Labor Relations Board. He tendered his regrets to the Governor and accepted the State Treasurer's offer to become executive secretary of the Commission on State Finance.

Albert's presence as chief officer of the commission enabled Unruh to fully staff the infant agency. The commission began to issue quarterly reports on state revenues and expenditures, as well as long-range forecasts. The staff tracked legislation with fiscal impact and forecast the general fund cost of servicing general obligation bonds. The Governor's Department of Finance was not delighted with the existence of the State Treasurer's Commission on State Finance (several years later, in fact, Gov. Pete Wilson used his line-item veto to abolish it), but a fairly high level of cooperation was established between the two state agencies during Rodda's tenure. Unruh's plan for an independent check on the Governor's Department of Finance was in place.

Rodda stayed at the Commission on State Finance until 1983, when the Los Rios board of trustees beckoned. People in Area 5, the college district where Albert and Clarice resided, came to the Senator with a request that he chair a search committee to recruit a new trustee to represent them. Each person he approached said the same thing: “Why don't you run, Al?” No naïf, Albert soon realized that those who had approached him had had him in mind in the first place. They just wanted him to discover the degree of support for him within the district. Soon he was on the campaign trail and Area 5 voters swept him into office by a gratifyingly large majority.

Later years

Albert Rodda enjoyed relatively robust good health for many decades. No one, however, could have maintained the high standard he had set indefinitely. He gradually slowed down after retiring from the Los Rios board at the age of 80. The Senator continued to enjoy meeting friends for lunch, but he gradually withdrew from discussions of the day's political issues. Albert had high standards; when he no longer had the time and energy to keep up on the details of California and national politics, he preferred to reserve judgment rather than pontificate without information. (How many politicians do you know with that kind of fundamental honesty or restraint?) The Senator increasingly devoted himself to telling jokes and stories at meetings of his lunch group. His penchant for repeating his favorites became a running gag (including inspiring a contest at his 90th birthday party, in which people competed in their recollection of the jokes when given only the punch lines).

The Senator's greatest loss came with the passing of Clarice, who had been his steadfast partner and helpmate for so long. Albert eventually gave up on living alone and tried a retirement community, but he wasn't happy there. After a serious illness left him an invalid, his children arranged for Albert to move back home with live-in companions to care for him. In familiar and comfortable surroundings, the Senator eased into a quiet and tranquil life. He liked to receive visitors, but would tire quickly and no longer cared to converse at length. Albert recently turned 95.

Legacy

In addition to his many enacted legislative measures, Albert Rodda's legacy consists of family, friends, and schools. The Los Rios district continues to deliver Albert's dream of open access to higher education, Rodda Hall at the Sacramento City College campus serving as a visible reminder of his impact. His children have distinguished themselves in public school classrooms, on the state bench, and in the state attorney general's office, continuing their parents' accomplishments in education and law. Albert's many students and legislative staffers are an extension of his legacy, and we are everywhere.

Fiscal implications of Jarvis II, part 2

2007-07-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: The battle against Proposition 9 (1980)

The background to Senator Rodda's paper

The attempt to follow up the success of Proposition 13 ran into a snag with Proposition 9. Ballot initiatives in California are not required to meet any particular standards of clarity or specificity. The drafters of Proposition 9 neglected to contain any language relating to its effective date. Some suggested that its adoption by the voters in the June 1980 primary election would cut personal income taxes in half for the entire calendar year, retroactively effective back to January. With the state budget due to take effect on July 1, the state could conceivably find its revenue base cut out from under it with only weeks to drastically overhaul that state spending plan.

The Legislature contained a number of so-called “Proposition 13 babies,” freshman assemblymen and senators elected in the wake of the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978. Several of them were eager to ride the tax-cutting bandwagon further. Other conservative legislators, some of whom had opposed Proposition 13 as too extreme, sought to outflank their junior colleagues and atone for their tardiness in embracing the tax-revolt movement. They seized on the ambiguities in Proposition 9 as opportunities to soft-pedal the impact of the initiative and make it appear less draconian. Legislative measures were introduced to stipulate the effective date of the proposition, if enacted by the voters, and to specify the initiative's impact on personal income tax brackets. These bills would have the effect of mitigating the initial impact of Proposition 9, postponing its biggest shockwave till the next year.

Senator Rodda's initial analysis of Proposition 9, Fiscal Implications of Jarvis II, was published on January 15, 1980. It was snatched up as a vital resource by the opponents of Proposition 9. However, Rodda's paper was criticized by the initiative's proponents because it did not address the mitigating legislation being sponsored by Proposition 9 supporters. Rodda recognized this as a legitimate point and hastened to address it. Only three months after his first analysis, the Senator released a 34-page supplement. That supplement provides the content of this article.

—TB

Supplement to January 15 Paper on Fiscal Implications of Jarvis II or Proposition #9 as Viewed from the Perspective of a Practical Politician

Part I: Possible Responses to Proposition #9: Three Scenarios

Part II: Impact of Campbell Legislation to Repeal Retroactive Implementation

Part III: Impact of Imbrecht Legislation to Apply 1978 Tax Brackets to Indexing of Personal Income Tax and to Repeal Retroactive Implementation of Proposition #9

Calculations and Interpretation by Senator Albert S. Rodda

Comment

The material in this Supplementary Paper is designed to clarify the issues which relate to Proposition #9 and to indicate the impact upon state financing of changes in current law and different estimates of the magnitude of the state's revenues and one-time surplus. Three Scenarios are discussed and projections for Fiscal Years 1980-81 and 1981-82 are made. Totally accurate projections, of course, are impossible; however, if the assumptions are realistic, such forecasts have the ability to indicate the general direction in which trends are developing. That is what these calculations are designed to accomplish: to provide the reader with more than a vague apprehension of the fiscal future for the State of California if it must function after its major source of General Fund Revenues, the Personal Income Tax, is significantly reduced in 1980-81 and succeeding years by Proposition #9. The Personal Income Tax now provides about 35% of the state's General Fund Revenues; Proposition #9 will reduce the future level of support from that source, since the state will receive only 47% of the amount it now receives from the Personal Income Tax. If predictions are accurate, the Personal Income Tax will provide, therefore, only about 19% of the state's General Fund Revenues after Proposition #9 and the fiscal impact upon the state will be very significant. Of particular importance to California will be the fiscal impact upon school funding. The first negative effect will be experienced in the loss of state funding for school facility construction and maintenance because of the transfer of the Tideland Oil Revenues to the General Fund. A second implication will be an almost certain reduction in the level of state funds for allocation to local government in the form of Proposition #13 “bail-out” money, approximately 74% of which is paid to the schools, Kindergarten through the Community Colleges. A third implication will be the possibility of a significant reduction in the state's General Fund apportionment to the School Fund and in State Budget expenditures to finance categorical aid programs.

The standard dictionary definition of the verb “mitigate” is: “To make less harsh, severe, or painful.”

The proponents of Proposition #9, including Mr. Jarvis, are seeking to “mitigate” or make less “painful” the fiscal impact of Proposition #9. The mitigation is to be achieved by raising the Personal Income Tax rates for tax year 1980, and thereafter, above the level provided by Proposition #9.

Under “Minimum Mitigation,” the tax increase will be zero.

Under “Moderate Mitigation,” the tax increase will equal $1.4 billion for Fiscal Year 1980-81.

Under “Maximum Mitigation,” the tax increase will equal $2.0 billion in Fiscal Year 1980-81 and about $600 million each year thereafter.

Part I: Potential Responses to Proposition #9: Three Scenarios

Those who are interested in the fiscal implications of Proposition #9 upon the state and local government, including the schools, should realize that there are several ways of interpreting the effect of Proposition #9. In my original paper, dated January IS, 1980, and the two supplementary analyses which followed, three different sets of assumptions were used. As a consequence, the first-year impact, Fiscal Year 1980-81, is calculated as producing three different outcomes with respect to the state's revenue loss. I have classified them, therefore, on the basis of their net effect on the State Budget for that year as producing:

Minimum Mitigation (Scenario I)
Moderate Mitigation (Scenario II)
Maximum Mitigation (Scenario III)

When the fiscal implications resulting from the three sets of assumptions and fiscal data are projected into the second year, the results or effects are very similar and indicate that the impact of Proposition #9 will significantly impair the ability of the state to fund its fiscal obligations to state, local government, and the schools. Unfortunately, the proponents of Proposition #9 are ignoring Fiscal Year 1981-82, and thereafter, and are claiming that the opponents are employing scare tactics in their opposition to Proposition #9, and that the fiscal effects will be less serious than claimed. They then present an analysis or interpretation of the effect of Proposition #9 for Fiscal Year 1980-81 which is predicated upon assumptions reflected in either Scenario II, labelled Moderate Mitigation, or Scenario III, labelled Maximum Mitigation. In each instance, they assume that current law relating to the Personal Income Tax will be changed prior to the election on June 3rd and that the state's surplus will be considerably larger than was estimated in the early part of the year.

In my Jarvis II paper, written in January, 1980, I made no specific dollar calculations with reference to the effect of Proposition #9 after taking into consideration those variables relating to General Fund Revenue projections, increases in the Tideland Oil Revenues, or the magnitude of the Year-End Surplus. I merely stated that the state was confronted with a potential deficit for Fiscal Year 1980-81 of approximately a billion dollars, had a one-time surplus in June 1980 of $1.8 billion and would lose $4.9 billion in revenue during Fiscal Year 1980-81 if Proposition #9 were approved. I also commented that the Tideland Oil Revenues would be employed to offset future revenue losses from Proposition #9. If the available data had been used to estimate the first-year revenue loss, the conclusion would have been that the net Short-Fall or deficit would amount to approximately $4.5 billion: current revenues of $19.3 billion, plus the one-time surplus of $1.8 billion, minus the $4.9 billion Proposition #9 effect, equals a total revenue, ongoing and one-time, of $16.2 billion. If this is subtracted from the January 10, 1980, Budget of $20.7 billion and the Tideland Oil Revenues in the amount of $400 million are transferred to the General Fund, the Short-Fall will amount to $4.5 billion if $400 million is added to the state's Federal Revenue balance and these funds are maintained as a state Prudent Reserve in the amount of $550 million.

Since the analysis reflects the January 1980 state revenue estimates and surplus, it is no longer meaningful. A more current and responsible analysis produces what I classify as Scenario I, or Minimum Mitigation of the first-year effect of Proposition #9, and it is predicated upon certain assumptions with respect to the implementation of Proposition #9 and a moderate estimate of the increase in the state1s revenues and magnitude of the one-time surplus.

Scenario I — Minimum Mitigation

Assumptions: Current law remains unchanged and Proposition #9 is interpreted as becoming effective on January 1, 1980, and full indexing remains in effect as provided under existing law. The one-time surplus is estimated at $1.8 billion and the unanticipated state revenue increase is calculated to be $600 million, reflecting a 3% error in the January estimate. The Tideland Oil Revenues are estimated to be $500 million and that sum is transferred to the General Fund. The state1s current Federal Revenue Sharing money is calculated to be $150 million and a total of $400 million is added to that balance in order to create a responsible Prudent Reserve of $550 million. If the State Budget is reduced by the $400 million identified in the Duffy Report as a reserve for “economic uncertainties,” the Budget in 1980-81 will be $20.4 billion; however, a minimum of $400 million must be added to that amount to reflect the Tideland Oil Revenues to be allocated under the provisions of SB 1426 for the capital outlay needs of public education, Kindergarten through the University, and for the establishment of an Energy and Resources fund. When these proposed state expenditures are taken into consideration, the state's expenditures subject to reduction in 1980-81, after Proposition #9, will amount to $20.7 billion.

The first-year effect, utilizing these assumptions, is that the state's next year net deficit, or Revenue Short-fall, will amount to $3.8 billion after, of course, establishment of a Prudent Reserve of $550 million.

1980-81 Revenues = $16.9 billion, and Revenue Short-fall = $3.8 billion. When projected into 1981-82, Revenues = $18.8 billion, and the Revenue Short-fall = $4.0 billion, assuming a 13% revenue increase and a Budget increase of 10% over 1980.

Two other calculations, which are predicated upon different assumptions, I classify as Moderate Mitigation and Maximum Mitigation.

Scenario II — Moderate Mitigation

Assumptions: The Campbell legislation to change current law in order to make Proposition #9 effective in June, 1980, and to establish Personal Income Tax rates equal to 71% of the 1978 rates for the 1980 Tax Year, is enacted into law. It is further assumed that the state's revenues exceed the original estimate in the amount of $600 million, that the Tideland Oil Revenues are approximately $500 million, and that the federal Revenue Sharing Reserve is $150 million. The first-year effect, utilizing those assumptions, is that the state's net deficit will amount to $2.4 billion. This calculation is based upon the assumption that the state's expenditure reduction of $400 million through deletion of the appropriation identified in the Duffy Report as a reserve for “economic uncertainties” is offset by the planned $400 million expenditure for the capital outlay needs of public education and for the establishment of an Energy and Resources fund.

Fiscal Year 1980-81 Revenues = $18.3 billion, and the Revenue Short-fall = $2.4 billion. When projected into 1981-82, Revenues = $18.8 billion, and the Revenue Short-fall = $4.0 billion, assuming a 13% revenue increase and a 1980 Budget increase of 10%, and a decline in Personal Income Tax income in 1981-82 of approximately 53.5%.

Scenario III — Maximum Mitigation

Assumptions: The Imbrecht legislation is enacted into law and changes the effective date of Proposition #9 to January 1980, as provided in the Campbell legislation, and applies in 1980-81 the full indexing of the Personal Income Tax to the 1978 tax brackets and has the effect, therefore, of increasing the tax payments for this year and the future over the payments which would be made if the current indexing brackets remained in effect. The effect of these two changes in law will be to cause a significant one-year reduction of the state's revenue loss for fiscal Year 1980-81 from Proposition #9, which otherwise would occur in the magnitude of approximately $2.0 billion, and a modest ongoing reduction in the amount of $500 million. In addition, it is assumed that the state's unanticipated revenue increase for next year will be $700 million, that the State Budget contains a $400 million one-time reserve for “economic uncertainties” and that the Tideland Oil Revenues will increase by $400 million. If the Budget is reduced by the $400 million, the reserve for “economic uncertainties,” it will be $20.14 billion, but that will be offset by the $400 million to be allocated under SB 1426 for the capital outlay needs in public education and the establishment of an Energy and Resources fund. If all of the revenue sources are utilized except $400 million, which are added to the federal Revenue Sharing balance of $150 million in order to establish a Prudent Reserve of $550 million, the revenue loss because of Proposition #9 will be significantly reduced.

The first-year effect of Proposition #9, based upon these assumptions, is calculated to be in the amount of a Short-fall in 1980-81 of $1.8 billion, assuming a Prudent Reserve of $550 million is established.

Fiscal Year 1980-81 Revenues = $18.9 billion, and the Revenue Short-fall = $1.8 billion after the elimination from the Budget of the reserve for “economic uncertainties” and an augmentation by an equivalent amount, $400 million, for public education capital outlay needs and the establishment of an Energy and Resources fund. It is, also, assumed that $400 million is allocated from the state's revenues for the creation of a Prudent Reserve of $550 million, of which $150 million is federal Revenue Sharing money. When projected into 1981-82, Revenues = $19.3 billion, and the Revenue Short-fall = $3.5 billion, assuming a 13% increase in the state's revenues and a 1981-82 Budget increase of 10% over the previous year.

Conclusion

Scenario II — Moderate Mitigation seems to be most likely to occur. If that proves correct, the state's estimated Revenue Short-Fall for 1980-81 will be $2.5 billion, assuming a Prudent Reserve, and $4.0 billion in 1981-82.

The two-year average Revenue Short-Fall will be approximately 15% of what could have been budgeted had Proposition #9 not been approved, or approximately 12% in 1980-81 and 18% in 1981-82. It is interesting to note that in Fiscal Year 1979-80, the current year, the state's General Fund expenditures are $18.7 billion. Assuming that Moderate Mitigation occurs, state expenditures will be $18.2 billion in 1980-81, and in 1981-82 they will be $18.8 billion.

In Fiscal Year 1981-82, the state will have a Budget approximately equal to that in Fiscal Year 1979-80, the current year, after two years of unusual inflation.

Addendum

An alternative analysis predicated upon a projection of the state's revenues for 1980-81, after reduction of the revenue loss from Proposition #9, at a rate of increase equal to 11%¹, produces very similar fiscal results with respect to fiscal Year 1981-82 State Revenues and the Budget Short-fall for that year. In the alternative analysis, the assumption is made that the retroactive implementation of Proposition #9 to January 1, 1980, is repealed and that there is no change in the current tax brackets for indexing the Personal Income Tax.

After the revenue calculation which reflects these assumptions is made and the $600 million in Tideland Oil Revenues are added to the state's revenues, the resultant total can be regarded as the General fund Revenues available for expenditure in 1981-82.

Under both the Minimum Mitigation and the Moderate Mitigation Scenarios, given these assumptions, the Revenues = $18.9 billion, and the Budget Short-fall = $3.9 billion.

Under the Maximum Mitigation Scenario, the assumption of which is that the Imbrecht legislation is enacted, the Revenues = $19.5 billion, and the Budget Short-fall = $3.3 billion.

Part II: Impact of Campbell Legislation to Make Proposition #9 effective in June, 1980, rather than in January, 1980

Evidently, Howard Jarvis is apprehensive about the first-year revenue loss estimated to result from voter approval of Proposition #9. That estimated loss is $4.9 billion, or approximately 25% of the state's projected revenues for Fiscal Year 1980-81. Because of his apprehension and because he claims that he did not intend the amendment to become effective as of January 1, 1980, which is a mandate of existing tax law², Mr. Jarvis is supporting a bill, SB 1464, authored by Senator William Campbell, which will (1) make the amendment effective on June 4th upon its certification of voter approval by the Secretary of State, and (2) provide a 1980 Calendar Year tax rate of approximately 71% of the 1978 tax rate, rather than the 50% required by the specific language in the Jarvis Initiative.

It has been suggested that such action may be of questionable constitutionality; however, it has widespread political support despite the fact that it will increase the 1980 tax rates above the level to be established by Proposition #9, and there is reason to believe that it may become law and its constitutionality upheld.³

If the Campbell legislation is enacted and the tax rate for the Calendar Year 1980 is increased from 50% to approximately 71% of the 1978 rates, the potential $4.9 billion revenue loss in Fiscal Year 1980-81 from Proposition #9 will decline to an estimated $3.5 billion.

The important factor, of course, is that, although this will provide a reduction in the first-year estimated revenue loss because of Proposition #9 from $4.9 billion to $3.5 billion, it will not affect future years. In the years following, the state's revenue loss will be of a magnitude to reflect approximately a 53.5% reduction in the state's Personal Income Tax, a loss calculated in 1981-82 to be approximately $4.2 billion, which will increase in fiscal years thereafter.

The projected state resources for June of 1980 have increased slightly over the estimate which was made in January. The margin of error in the estimate has been calculated to be in the neighborhood of 2% to 4% of the January projection.⁴ I have concluded that an error in the amount of 3% is responsible and an error of that magnitude will result in revenue receipts of $600 million over the estimate.

Assuming that the Year-End Surplus is increased by that amount, the surplus money available to offset the revenue loss because of Proposition #9 will amount to $2.4 billion and not the $1.8 billion surplus as previously estimated. Furthermore, additional revenues in the amount of approximately $500 million above that anticipated in the Governor's Budget may be transferred to the General Fund as a result of the decontrol of heavy oil prices.⁵ Since the state normally maintains a Prudent Reserve as security against a decline in its revenues because of adverse economic conditions, it may be assumed that $400 million of the surplus will be used for that purpose and that it will be augmented by the state's Federal Revenue Sharing money, approximately $150 million, which would establish the reserve at a level of $550 million.⁶

On the basis of these assumptions, one can make some interesting projections about the magnitude of the revenue and expenditure reductions in Fiscal Years 1980-81 and 1981-82 which will result because of voter approval of Proposition #9.

The state's revenues for Fiscal Year 1980-81 were estimated in January to be $19.3 billion. If it is assumed that the state's General Fund Revenues are reduced by an estimated $3.5 billion, to reflect the first-year implementation of Proposition #9, presuming the Campbell legislation is enacted, the state's revenues will decline to the level of $15.8 billion. If the one-time or Year-End Surplus is added to that revenue estimate in the amount of $1.8 billion and if it is further augmented by $600 million from increased state revenues, the General Fund dollars available to fund the 1980-81 Budget will be in the amount of $18.3 billion. That will consist of the state's ongoing revenues after Proposition #9, the Tideland Oil Revenue increase, and all of the one-time surplus, with the exception of the Prudent Reserve in the amount of $550 million.⁷

The State Budget, however, assuming no augmentations are approved by the Legislature prior to voter approval of Proposition #9, will be in the amount of $20.75 billion. The Duffy Report identifies a $400 million reserve for “economic uncertainties” in the 1980-81 Budget, and if that is deleted, the Budget will be $20.33 billion. It is important to realize, however, that administration-sponsored legislation, SB 1426, to utilize a portion of the increase in Tideland Oil Revenues to establish an Energy and Resources Fund and to finance school construction and maintenance for all segments of education, Kindergarten through the University, will establish the level of support at an annual amount of about $400 million. This expenditure, of course, is not included in the Budget as introduced, and since it is planned to finance those needs with the Tideland Oil Revenue increase which will be transferred to the General Fund as an offset to the Proposition #9 revenue loss, the state will be deprived of the fiscal ability to proceed in the financing of these very urgent needs; it is reasonable, therefore, to include that amount, $400 million, as an ongoing state expenditure. It will offset the $400 million reduction in the Budget which was achieved through the elimination of the reserve for “economic uncertainties”; thus, the state's expenditure level appropriate for calculating the Proposition #9 Short-Fall should be established at the $20.7 billion level provided in the Budget when introduced in January.

If the voters approve Proposition #9, the Budget for 1980-81 will have to be reevaluated and placed upon the Governor's desk in an amount not to exceed the state's projected revenues of $18.3 billion; it will have to be reduced, therefore, in the amount of $2.4 billion, or approximately 12% of the original Budget expenditure.

Projection for 1981-82

In order to determine the impact of Proposition #9 on Fiscal Year 1981-82, an assumption may be made that the state's 1981-82 revenue base will reflect an increase of 13% over the previous fiscal year.⁸ This increase is equal to a three-year average percentage increase, 1978-79, 1979-80, and 1980-81, and the last year, however, 1980-81, is only an estimate of the increase over 1979-80. It might be argued that the percentage of increase should be estimated at a lower rate because of the fact that full indexing of the Personal Income Tax will be in effect and because Proposition #9 will result in an annual loss of 53.5% of the state's Personal Income Tax, which in 1980-81 was estimated to account for 35.7% of General Fund Revenues.⁹ The loss of revenues from those two changes in the Personal Income Tax will significantly affect the total revenues that the state can expect to receive, not only in 1980-81, but in 1981-82 and each fiscal year thereafter. That loss will reduce the state's revenue elasticity, or the tendency for revenues to increase at a rate greater than the increase in the state's Gross National Product. A 13% estimated increase in revenues, therefore, considering the impact of indexing and the 50% reduction in Personal Income Tax rates amounts to what I think is a responsible figure.

The assumption is made that the estimated 1980-81 state revenues in the amount of $19.3 billion are augmented by the $600 million increase in state revenues over the $19.3 billion estimate. As a consequence, the revenues are $19.9 billion and that amount is adjusted to reflect a 13% rate of increase for 1981-82.

Based upon those data, the state's total revenues in 1981-82 would, under the current tax rate or voter rejection of Proposition #9, amount to $22.5 billion. This may be increased by its augmentation of $600 million in Tideland Oil Revenues.¹⁰ The total revenues would be $23.1 billion and these revenues would constitute the only source of funding available to the state in Fiscal Year 1981-82 since there will be no “carry-over surplus,” all of it having been exhausted in Fiscal Year 1980-81 as an offset to Proposition 9.¹¹

The 1981-82 Budget may be assumed to increase at a rate of 10% over that of 1980-81: $20.75 billion plus $2.07 billion. The amount, therefore, will equal $22.8 billion.

The Personal Income Tax currently is producing about 35.7% of the state's General Fund; therefore, assuming that Proposition #9 is approved, the loss in revenue from that source will amount to 53% of 35.7%, or 19% of the state's General Fund. Such a percentage of the state's tax base would amount to a $4.3 billion reduction in the revenues which would have been collected absent approval of Proposition #9. Deducting that revenue loss from the estimated $23.1 billion of the state's total revenue, the result is $23.1 billion minus $4.3 billion, or $18.8 billion, and that will be the General Fund revenue base for Fiscal Year 1981-82, or $100 million more than is being spent in Fiscal Year 1979-80, the current year. The Short-Fall will be $4.0 billion, or a Budget of $22.8 billion minus revenues of $18.8 billion.

Interestingly, the result is the same for the Minimum Mitigation Scenario if a 1981-82 projection is made, since the basic assumptions are the same and since the Campbell legislation is effective only in the first year and has no impact upon the second year, 1981-82, or succeeding year revenues.

Conclusion

The critical factors affecting the state's fiscal situation if Proposition #9 is approved are:

There is no huge, $1.8 billion, one-time surplus remaining after Fiscal Year 1980-81, only a Prudent Reserve of $550 million, the maintenance of which is essential to sound fiscal management and the protection of the state's fiscal solvency.
Since the State Budget must not exceed estimated revenue projections for any fiscal year, future revenues will determine the level of state expenditures, unless, of course, a one-time surplus develops, or if Proposition #4 mandates a spending level below revenues.
Personal Income Tax Revenues, as a consequence of Proposition #9, will decline by approximately 53.4% and will contribute about 18.6% of the General Fund Revenues instead of the 35.7% as estimated in the Budget for 1980-81. This estimate is for Fiscal Year 1981-82.

The state has two basic options: (1) imposing the reduction in expenditures totally upon state allocations and subvention to schools and local government, particularly county health and welfare allocations; or (2) distributing the state's revenue loss in such a manner as to reduce total government expenditures in California—state, cities, counties, special education, and the schools.

To accomplish the above result, the state will have to enact a number of changes in current law:

Modify the deflator mechanism in AB 8.
Reduce the amount of school property taxes transferred to other segments of local government as provided in AB 8.
Reduce the amount of tax relief allocated to local government because of the homeowner exemption, the business inventory buy-out, the Williamson Land Conservation Act and revenues raised by the cigarette tax and transferred to local government.

In any event, substantive changes in the present state response to Proposition #13 will result and government will experience a decline in its level of support.

The fiscal impact of Proposition #9, assuming (I) the Campbell legislation is enacted, (2) the state's revenues are $600 million above the January estimate of $19.3 billion, and (3) the Tideland Oil Revenue increase in the magnitude of about $500 million is transferred to the General Fund, is calculated as follows:

Fiscal Year 1980-81 estimated Budget reduction of about 12%, or $2.4 billion if a Prudent Reserve of $550 million is maintained.
Fiscal Year 1981-82 estimated Budget reduction of about 18% from the normal State Budget for that year, or approximately $4.0 billion.
Two-year revenue loss of $6.4 billion, assuming a Prudent Reserve is maintained of $550 million.

State level of General Fund expenditures will be as follows:

1979-80 $18.7 billion

1980-81 $18.3 billion (assuming a Prudent Reserve of $550 million)

1981-82 $18.8 billion (assuming a Prudent Reserve of $550 million)

Obviously, drastic Budget reductions will have to be made over the two-year period.

It is now recognized that the state's economy may experience a decline beginning in the third quarter, July to September. If this occurs, the state revenues may decline in Fiscal Year 1980-81. That could easily exhaust the Prudent Surplus. If the result were greater than the magnitude of the surplus $550 million, the effect in 1981-82 would be more serious than the 1981-82 revenue loss of $4.0 billion. It could rise to $4.5 to $4.8 billion, depending upon the magnitude of the economic slowdown; a 5% reduction in state revenues could produce a net $800 to $900 million revenue loss.

Furthermore, if inflation continues at a high rate into 1980-82, the 10% Budget increase may be inadequate. If it were increased by 2%, to 12%, the normal Budget would increase by about $500 million in 1981-82, which would increase the revenue deficiency that Proposition #9 would produce in that year.

Part III: Impact of Imbrecht Legislation re Indexing of Personal Income Tax and Implementation of Proposition on January 1, 1980

The Vice Chairman of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, Assemblyman Gordon Duffy, has published a very scholarly paper on the impact of Proposition #9.

It presents a number of options for estimating the first- year effect of Proposition #9 if approved by the voters on June 3. This is an analysis of that impact based upon three assumptions which will most significantly reduce the first-year (1980-81) revenue loss resulting from Proposition #9.

The assumptions are:

A very liberal estimate of the state's surplus at the end of Fiscal Year 1979-80.
Enactment of legislation to repeal the retroactive provisions of current tax law which relate to the implementation of Proposition #9, SB 1464, Campbell, and AB 3020, Imbrecht.
Enactment of AB 3020, Imbrecht, to implement Personal Income Tax indexing in Tax Year 1980, as required by the Bergeson Act, AB 276, 1979 Session, but at the tax brackets in effect for Tax Year 1978.

The total fiscal effect of a very liberal estimate of state revenues and a Personal Income Tax increase in Tax Year 1980, which are the essential elements of these assumptions, would be significantly to reduce the state's revenue loss from proposition #9 in Fiscal Year 1980-81. The effect will be substantively to mitigate, therefore, the negative impact of Proposition #9 during the first year of its implementation. In the second and succeeding years, however, the state's Revenue Short-Fall will become quite large and, unfortunately, the second-year, or 1981-82, impact of Proposition #9 is being ignored by the proponents of Proposition #9, and it was not addressed in the Assembly Ways and Means Committee Report.

The general consensus is that, predicated upon the above-mentioned assumptions, the first-year (1980-81) effect will be to reduce the projected state revenue loss, as a consequence of voter approval of Proposition #9, from an estimated amount of $4.9 billion, if the state's revenue increase and its one-time surplus are disregarded, to a level of $1.8 billion. Since the legislative change to reduce the Revenue Short-fall from Proposition #9 will be effective only for one year, fiscal Year 1980-81, and since the state's 1980-81 Year-End Surplus will be exhausted, the state will experience in Fiscal Year 1981-82 to a much greater degree the adverse fiscal effects of Proposition #9. As a consequence, the state's revenues for that year, 1981-82, and thereafter, will decline significantly from the level which normally would accrue to the General fund, and this could prove of critical importance to the state. The following calculations indicate the basis for that revenue projection.

If the state's estimated 1980-81 General Fund Revenues of $19.3 billion are increased by $700 million, the revenue increase which the Duffy Report indicates to have occurred over the original January 1980 projection, the state's General Fund Revenues will equal $20.0 billion. If a transfer of Tideland Oil Revenues to the General Fund in the amount of $500 million is made, the total revenues available to the state will attain a level of $20.5 billion for Fiscal Year 1980-81. If from that amount the $3.0 billion tax reduction which is estimated to result from Proposition #9 is deducted¹², after enactment of the Imbrecht legislation, the state’s available revenues will amount to $17.5 billion. If that revenue base is augmented for 1980-81 by the addition to it of the estimated $1.8 billion, one-time Year-End Surplus for Fiscal Year 1979-80, the state will have a total revenue source to fund the State Budget in 1980-81 in the magnitude of $19.3 billion. If $400 million is added to the $150 million Federal Revenue Sharing Reserve, the state will have a Prudent Reserve of $550 million and a revenue source of $18.9 billion. State expenditures, as provided in the Budget as introduced on January 10, 1980, will amount to $20.7 billion, and if the assumption is made that that amount is reduced by $400 million, the amount budgeted for “economic uncertainties,” the Budget will amount to $20.3 billion. Since that reduction will be offset by the $400 million to be allocated from Tideland Oil Revenues for the creation of an Energy and Resources Fund and for public education capital outlay under the provisions of SB 1426, the Budget must be reduced by $1.8 billion, assuming the maintenance of the $550 million Prudent Reserve, and by $1.4 billion if only the $150 million in Federal Revenue Sharing is retained as a State Budget Reserve.

Projections for 1981-82

In making an estimate of the state's revenues for the next year, 1981-82, I utilized the estimated General Fund Revenues of $19.3 billion for Fiscal Year 1980-81 as a base and increased that amount by the addition of the unanticipated revenue increase of $700 million. The result is an ongoing revenue base of $20.0 billion for Fiscal Year 1980-81. By adjusting that amount for a 13% increase, which is 1% less than the average rate of increase for the last two years, the total revenues available to the state for General Fund expenditures for 1981-82 can be expected to attain a total of $22.6 billion, and if $600 mil1'ion from the Tideland Oil Revenues is added to that amount, the General Fund Revenues will be $23.2 billion.

That $23.2 billion in revenues available for 1981-82 must be reduced, however, if Proposition #9 is approved, since the Personal Income Tax rates will be established at 50% of the 1978 rates. That reduction can be estimated through a calculation of the personal Income Tax loss. In 1980-81, the Personal Income Tax Revenues produced approximately 35.7% of the General Fund income; if that percentage were to continue into 1981-82, the Personal Income Tax could be expected to generate $8.3 billion of the state's $23.2 billion in revenues for that year. Because of the effect of Proposition #9, however, that revenue estimate must be reduced and the reduction will be in the amount of $4.39 billion, or 53% of the Personal Income Tax which otherwise would be collected.¹³ If that amount is deducted from the estimated revenues of $23.2 billion, the General Fund income source will decline to $18.8 billion in Fiscal Year 1981-82. Since the Imbrecht legislation will increase state Personal Income Taxes because of its reversion to the 1978 tax brackets, an additional $400 million should be added to that amount for a total revenue base of $19.2 billion. In addition to this revenue, however, the state will possess as a carry-over the Prudent Reserve of $550 million established in the previous year, 1980-81.

For the purpose of further analysis, one may assume that the Budget for 1980-81, as introduced, is not increased by 13%, the percentage increase applied to the state's revenue, but by only 10%. That would constitute a very responsible level of increase and will produce an hypothetical level of state expenditures for the 1981-82 Budget Year equal to $22.8 billion. In addition, of course, there will be available the previous year's Prudent Reserve of $550 million, apart of which is the $150 million in Federal Revenue Sharing money.

Since expenditure reductions will have to be made, because the amount of the state's General Fund Revenues will determine the amount the state may spend, the Budget may not exceed $19.2 billion, which is $3.6 billion below the “normal” expenditure level.

Conclusion

In the 1979-80 Budget, the one now in effect, the expenditure level for General Fund purposes is $18.7 billion. On the basis of my estimate of the “Imbrecht effect,” or the Maximum Mitigation of the first-year revenue loss from Proposition #9, the estimated state expenditures which may be incurred in 1980-81 will be $18.9 billion. On the basis of the calculations which I have explained and which are also predicated on the “most favorable” assumption, the state may project an expenditure level for Fiscal Year 1981-82 of approximately $19.2 billion. In effect, after three years of severe inflation, the state may spend in 1981-82 approximately $500 million more than was budgeted in Fiscal Year 1979-80, the current year.

The deflator mechanism will be implemented, as provided in AB 8, in Fiscal Year 1980-81 since that must occur if the state's fiscal resources, both ongoing revenues and the Year-End Surplus, are estimated to be $100 million less than $20.5 billion. When that takes place and if no reductions in the state's Budget are implemented, and if the deflator mechanism is applied pursuant to current law, 50% of the reduction must be experienced by the schools for a total state revenue loss of approximately $900 million in 1980-81. An equal amount would also be withheld from state allocations to other segments of local government. As a consequence, the bail-out, which began in 1978 at $4.3 billion, would be reduced in 1980-81 from a level of $5.3 billion to considerably less, or about $3.9 billion, an amount below that provided in 1978-79 in SB 154.

The impact will be so dramatic that the deflator will have to be rewritten. Of course, those expenditures which relate exclusively to state services could be reduced and that action would mitigate the impact of the deflator mechanism upon the schools and other segments of local government; but even if that were done, the revenue loss to local government would still be substantive.

Furthermore, in the following year, 1981-82, the state's fiscal situation will be even more tenuous, and there is no question that very significant and controversial decisions will have to be made in the determination of the appropriate expenditure reductions, state and local. It will not be as simple a challenge as was that in 1978, when the state responded to the implications of Proposition #13 in SB 154.

¹The Legislative Analyst's Budget Analysis for 1980-81 indicates that state revenues increased in 1979-80 over 1978-79 at a 16.8% rate. It is estimated, however, that the increase in 1980-81 revenues over 1979-80 will be at an 8.5% rate, the decline being largely the result of the impact of the 1978 one-time tax credit and full indexing of the Personal Income Tax upon Tax Years 1980 and 1981. Had the one-time 1978 tax credit and the full indexing effect been disregarded, the estimated revenue increase for 1980-81 would have been 12.3%. To assume a revenue increase in the magnitude of 11% is, therefore, a responsible compromise which, if it has a bias, has one favorable to Proposition #9.

²Revenue and Taxation Code, Div. 2, Part 10, Section 17034.

³Legislative Counsel's Opinion, March 7, 1980, re the constitutionality of the provisions of SB 1464. If a bill authored by Assemblyman Imbrecht, AB 3020, is enacted, the tax savings from the retroactive implementation of Proposition #9 will be repealed and, also, the indexing of the Personal Income Tax, as provided in current law, will be repealed and the 1978 tax brackets made applicable in 1980. This will result in another tax increase for 1980-81 in the magnitude of $500 million in addition to the $1.4 billion which will result from the repeal of retroactivity. .The Imbrecht bill will, therefore, increase Personal Income Taxes in 1980 by $1.9 billion over what is current law in the event that Proposition #9 is approved.

⁴As of February 29, 1980, the revenues were 2-1/2% greater than estimated, the same percentage as that produced on January 31, 1980. Report on General Fund Disbursement issued by Kenneth Cory, State Controller.

⁵SB 1426, legislation sponsored by the administration, and now in the Assembly, will provide that a large percentage of this money will be used to finance Capital Outlay for the schools, K through the University, and the Energy and Resources Fund. If transferred to the General Fund, money for school construction and conservation and development of renewable energy sources will be practically unavailable.

⁶Federal Revenue Sharing money may not be regarded as on-going income since there is a strong likelihood that the program will be repealed by Congress in its attempt to balance the Federal Budget.

⁷The Reserve, as stated, will consist of a $400 million one- time allocation from the state's increased revenues and $150 million in Federal Revenue Sharing money.

⁸Legislative Analyst Analysis of the Budget Bill for Fiscal Year 1980-81, p. A-29, Table 15. Had the effect of the one-time tax credit increase and full indexing of the Personal Income Tax been excluded, the revenue increase would have averaged over the three-year period, 1978-79, 1979-80, and 1980-81, at 14.5%.

⁹This revenue reduction will occur even if the Imbrecht bill to change the tax brackets is enacted, since full indexing will begin in 1981-82.

¹⁰Tideland Oil Revenues are anticipated to reach a maximum level in 1982-83, between $600 and $700 million, and to decline thereafter. This is the most optimistic projection of the State Lands Commission.

¹¹If in Fiscal Year 1980-81 the Prudent Reserve remains intact, it will be available to offset a Budget deficit which might result as a consequence of a serious slowdown in the economy and a decline in revenues.

¹²This reflects a reduction from the $4.9 billion revenue loss as a consequence of the enactment of the Imbrecht legislation to repeal the retroactive implementation of Proposition #9 and to initiate indexing of the Personal Income Tax in Tax Year 1980 based upon the 1978 tax brackets.

¹³This percentage reflects the fact that Proposition #9 will halve the tax rates, but cause a 53% to 54% loss of revenues to the state because of the fact that tax credits remain at current levels.

A Bush report card

2007-07-13T21:00:00.000-07:00

A teacher rates the president

The current president of the United States is at a low ebb in the political polls. His popularity is now tied with Nixon's lowest rating. It can't be a happy time for the White House. With Republicans edging away from their enormously unpopular leader, where will Mr. Bush find support? He need only look at the letters published in The Bee. Although the newspaper has announced it gets very few letters in favor of the president or his policies, every so often a prime example comes in through the transom.

From the July 9, 2007, Letters to the Bee, there's a presidential report card provided by math teacher Walt Andrews:

Hey, chill, all you Bush critics

June was a good month for W and America if you look at what his presidential responsibilities are.

Lets see: He gets an A for national security, A for the economy, A for employment, A for the War on Terror against al-Qaida, A for terrorists captured, A for terrorist plots uncovered and foiled, B on refugees processed, B+ for the number of airline companies coming out of bankruptcy post 9/11, A+ for historic Dow/S&P highs post 9/11, A+ for the number of first-time homeowners, B- on immigration and, finally, C on picking cabinet members and staff.

Looks like to me he doesn't have anything to be ashamed of—he at least earned his pay last month. That can't be said for a number of the pundits, editorialists and Bee letter writers. Get a grip and a life; George will be gone in January '09 and then we will have plenty of time to pick on the next president and his team.

In the meantime, fly the flag every day, not just on July 4 and Memorial Day, pray for all our combatants, uniformed or not, and enjoy all the benefits and privileges that they and all those who went before them have earned with their blood and sweat.

—Walter Andrews, Folsom

Right after this letter was published, it was reported that al-Qaida had recovered its pre-9/11 strength and was exhibiting greater signs of activity than seen in many years. So much for George's A in the war against bin Laden's terrorist group. An interim report on progress in the war in Iraq could not be spun by the White House into anything better than incremental progress in eight of eighteen benchmarks, none of which was fully met. That A is looking really questionable.

What about that wonderful news concerning first-time homebuyers? That certainly sounds like cause for celebration. That rainbow, however, contains a lot of red. Foreclosure rates hit a 30-month high in May and the new June results show that foreclosures are still running 87% above a year ago, despite a small improvement relative to the previous month. Even if the president were really deserving of an A+ for first-time homebuyers, does it detract from his grade when we consider how many of those new homes end up in foreclosure? I think it does.

When you get right down to it, the bulk of the evidence leads up to an unavoidable conclusion: Walt Andrews, an adjunct professor of mathematics at American River College, is an easy grader.

The Capitol Restoration Gala

2007-06-30T20:30:00.000-07:00

The Rodda Project: Restoration of the State Capitol (1982)

The background to Sen. Rodda's remarks

Many states decided to embark on special projects in concert with the national observation in 1976 of the bicentennial anniversary of American independence. California decided to refurbish the classic features of the State Capitol in Sacramento, whose dome is an echo of the U.S. Capitol building in D.C.

The Capitol Restoration Project was a great success, although it took considerably longer than originally planned. At each stage the restoration workers uncovered new and exciting features of the old building, each discovery requiring evaluation and a decision whether it would affect the renovation plans. The State Capitol was returned to service in 1982, at which time a series of events were planned to mark the occasion.

Sen. Rodda was invited to deliver some remarks at the gala celebration held in the restored senate chambers. Although he was no longer in office, he had been involved in making the original plans and had been dean of the senate. Cognizant of the honor being extended to him by his former colleagues' invitation, Albert Rodda prepared a short speech. He was overcome by emotion as he spoke and had difficulty completing his remarks. Rodda apologized for becoming overwrought, but his colleagues thanked him warmly for his efforts and his entire speech is preserved in the following text.

Remarks of Former State Senator Albert S. Rodda at the Capitol Restoration Gala in the Senate Chamber

January 9, 1982

I am honored to have been invited to participate in this unique ceremony. It is an important occasion for the city of Sacramento and for our great state. The Capitol restoration will prove to be a remarkable and constructive contribution to California's history, and I am grateful to the Joint Rules Committee for its initiation and completion of the project. Because of this action, citizens of California and of other states who are interested in the importance and meaning of history may now view the Restored Capitol, the Indian Museum, Sutter's Fort, the Old Governor's Mansion, and the State Railroad Museum when they visit the capital city. These evidences of California's past will provide a remarkable opportunity for them to visualize and appreciate the history of our great state. They are symbols of the state's past and, as such, they are important; all states and nations must preserve and respect those symbolic representations of their growth, development and significance. The symbolic importance of the American Flag, the National Anthem, the Pledge of Allegiance and the holiday celebrations of important historic events are all essential to the education of the people; to the strengthening of their identification with this country's values and historic significance; and their appreciation of the substance and meaning of our remarkable system of government—a heritage of which we must be proud and to which we must have a deep personal commitment. For that reason, I have chosen to speak today more to the substance of the Gala Week Ceremony and less to the symbolism of the grandeur of our beautifully restored capitol. In doing so, I will begin with a quotation from an essay entitled “A Vindication of the Government of New England Churches” by Reverend John Wise, an early 18th-century American writer. In that essay, Chapter II, “The Freedom of Man,” he commented that “... from the Principles of Sociableness it follows as a fundamental Law of Nature, that Man is not so Wedded to his own Interest, but that he can make the Common good the mark of his Aim; And hence he becomes Capacitated to enter into a Civil State by the Law of Nature; for without this property in Nature, namely, Sociableness, which is for Cementing of parts, every government would soon moulder and dissolve.”

Many 18th-century colonial thinkers were significantly influenced by the philosophy expressed by Reverend Wise, and they consistently affirmed their faith in the ability of the citizen to govern himself and the importance, therefore, of introducing government by popular rule into the colonies and of making that concept the basis for the establishment of the new American nation. In this connection an interesting statement by Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist Papers is worth noting. It was apart of his appeal to the public for their approval of the Federal Constitution. He commented as follows:

“Let us now pause and ask ourselves whether ... the proposed Constitution ... has not been satisfactorily vindicated from the aspersions thrown upon it; and whether it has not been shown to be worthy of public approbation and necessary to the public safety and prosperity.... Every man is bound to answer these questions to be himself, according to the best of his conscience and understanding, and to act agreeably to the genuine and sober dictates of his judgment. This is a duty from which nothing can give him a dispensation. 'Tis one that he is called upon, nay, constrained by all the obligations that form the bands of society, to discharge, sincerely and honestly. No partial motive, no particular interest, no pride of opinion will justify to himself, to his country, or to his posterity, an improper election of the part he is to act.”

After Alexander Hamilton wrote these words, the U.S. Constitution was approved and the American federal system of government established. Since its inception and implementation, the powers of the people have been greatly expanded. The right to vote has been broadened to include both sexes, and all restrictions based on race and the ownership of property have been eliminated; slavery has been abolished; free public education has been granted to all citizens, and the civil rights of all citizens have been provided greater protection from the abuse of power by the state. All of these accomplishments reflect the conviction that the average citizen can be trusted to govern himself and that he will be influenced in his decisions by an appropriate respect for the rights of others and by an acceptable code of moral and ethical values.

A word of caution is in order. The acceptance of such a basic assumption about self-government should not be interpreted to mean that one must expect that representative government or government by the people will achieve an utopian social order and the elimination of all social injustice—a clean house swept free of all that is not defined as good. That end can never be the hope for this or any country if it is to remain an “open society” and guarantee the citizens their personal freedoms. One must be realistic about the ability of people to govern themselves through involvement in politics and, thus, determining how the power of the state be exercised.

Politics, by its nature, I must warn you, can only exist in a free and open society—that is politics as we know and experience it. In countries in which forms of totalitarianism exist, whether to the left or to the right, there is no politics. There is the exercise of political power by the army, a dictator, or a political party, but that is not politics—the sharing of political power. So keep that fact in mind when you are disposed to argue, as many citizens do, that our system of government is inadequate, corrupt, controlled by the special interests, inefficient and intrusive into their private lives. The acceptance of that attitude can lead to non-commitment, non-involvement, and even-alienation. It can become the rationale for one to become “otherwise engaged” and to refuse to accept the society. I wish to admonish you, therefore, even though I am a politician and humble about the prospects for the future, that while politics is a grubby business and will always be a grubby business, it is the most important business in the country as it relates to your personal freedom and the exercise of your prerogatives and rights as a citizen.

J.D.B. Miller, a contemporary Australian scholar and author of The Nature of Politics, analyzed the political process very thoughtfully and realistically, and his observations are very relevant to the contemporary political scene and are, therefore, worthy of note. The essence of his thought, simply stated, is that the establishment among rival groups and interests of political order—of agreed upon rules for the game—marks the birth of freedoms and that the compromises, deals, half-measures and bargains, which prompt impatient idealists to regard politicians as the “untouchables” and politics as an unworthy profession, are, in actuality, essential to the negotiating process of politics and remain, as history amply demonstrates, the only tested alternative to government by “outright coercion.”

In the last paragraph of his very scholarly work, Miller made the following significant observation:

“Politics does not carry values with it—on the whole, the values used in politics are those of the society in which it is being practiced, and do not derive directly from political operations—but it (politics) maybe said to constitute a value in itself, because the alternative to politics is compulsory agreement, in which everything that is not forbidden is compulsory. Interests which inveigh against ‘politics’ are often those which wish to make a whole society conform to a pattern which they lay down for it.”

This is my message. Retain one’s commitment to the open or free society. But in doing so, do not look upon the democratic system as utopian, or try to make it so; one should certainly not, because of its obvious flaws and imperfections, allow oneself to become alienated from it and to deny it a personal commitment. To adopt either perspective, is to abandon reason and to reject the lessons of history. One should heed the admonition of Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address, when he observed in words having a timeless quality:

“With malice toward none, with charity toward all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds and to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Or, one might recall the words of President John F. Kennedy in his Inaugural Address of 1961, when he observed:

“And so, my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country. But knowing that here on earth God's work must truly be our own, with a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth and lead the land we love asking his love and blessing.”

The Great Bhagwan Hoax of 1985

2007-06-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

Crisis in West Sacramento

In 1985 a neighborhood in West Sacramento was riven by an escalating prank war. The two parties—let's call them the Smiths and the Joneses—kept trying to top each other. As the competition continued unabated, it became inevitable that they would approach the verge of total war. Could tragedy be averted?

It was a purportedly friendly competition. All in good fun. The Jones family had, however, raised the bar quite a bit with their fake yard sale. Just before one summer weekend in 1985, the Joneses had plastered the neighborhood with fliers for a yard sale to be held at the address of the Smiths. Then, early on the morning of the bogus yard sale, the Joneses backed up their pickup truck to the Smiths' front yard and unloaded various sale items. These reportedly included a three-legged card table and a porcelain toilet with a cracked bowl, as well as several treadless car tires. The Joneses labeled each piece of junk with a ridiculous price sticker and fled the scene.

Given the eager nature of yard-sale aficionados everywhere, it was to be expected that Mrs. Smith would find her front yard swarming with bargain hunters when she opened the front door to fetch the morning newspaper. Heads swiveled her way when she made her appearance, scowls on the faces of the browsers. Someone asked, “Is this some kind of joke?”

Ah, yes. That's exactly what it was. Mrs. Smith summoned her husband, a self-declared conscientious objector and noncombatant in the prank war, and they proceeded to clear their front yard of trash. (I speak here only of the mock sales items, but the Smiths did also shoo away the people.)

That Monday, Mrs. Smith walked into my office for a council of war. We were coworkers in the State Treasurer's Office and she meant to enlist me in her cause. The fake yard sale represented a major coup by the Jones forces and she intended to launch a massive counterattack. But how?

It was an intriguing problem. Having never before applied my talents to the task of pulling off a large-scale practical joke, I was tempted by Mrs. Smith's proposal that I lend my hand to her effort. What, I asked, were the vulnerabilities of Mr. & Mrs. Jones? Mrs. Smith had the germ of an idea. There was one vacant lot in the neighborhood, and it was immediately adjacent to the Jones's home. The lot was owned by Pacific Gas & Electric for potential future use as a local power substation. The Jones coveted the PG&E lot, hoping to acquire it from the utility company and thereafter build a swimming pool on it. Their dreams of owning a double lot in West Sacramento all depended on PG&E deciding that the lot was surplus property and putting it on the open market.

Should we tease the Joneses by making it appear that the lot was for sale? No, we went one better: Let's get them thinking the lot was already sold—and sold to some of the least desirable tenants possible! What would serve our purpose?

In the mid-1980s, the followers of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh were in the news. They had formed a community in Rajneeshpuram, a sprawling ranch in Oregon that they had purchased and renamed. The Bhagwan was enjoying his fifteen minutes of fame by allowing his acolytes to wait on him hand and foot, tilling the fields of the commune, and standing in prayerful and respectful attention every time he deigned to drive by in one of his many Rolls Royces. (The Movementarian community in “The Joy of Sect” episode of The Simpsons is a composite parody of many religious cults, using Bhagwan's love of luxury cars as one of its jokes about the charismatic Movementarian figure known as “The Leader.”)

The prank almost wrote itself. On our lunch break, I sat down at the computer and rapped out a letter that we output through the laser printer. Remember, this was 1985. Laser printers were quite new and their ability to create mock letterhead had yet to be widely appreciated. We used Helvetica and Times Roman for the letterhead and Courier (to make it look like a typewriter) for the body. Mrs. Smith signed the hoax letter with a flourish and we dropped it in the mail. On the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the Joneses found it in their mail box, a friendly message announcing the imminent arrival of a Rajneeshee commune (and juvenile delinquent foster home) right next door:

Neighbourhood Enlightenment Ministries
A World Circle Program
Anand Shree Presba, Associate Director
World Circle Neighbourhood Programs
Rajneeshpuram, Oregon 98801

August 30, 1985 Mr. & Mrs. XXXXXX XXXXX XXXX XXXXXXXXXXX XXXXX West Sacramento, CA 95691 Dearest Friends: With joy we write to inform friends in West Sacramento whom we have not yet met that World Circle has received permission to prepare conditional use plans for a vacant lot in your immediate vicinity (East Yolo Township designation and legal lot description on file) as part of our Neighbourhood Enlightenment Ministries. Preliminary discussions with East Yolo Community Services encourage us that substation plans may be subject to waiver in this instance. In accordance with the civil forms, and county ordinance C. 5212/82, we are preparing for our presentation before the county planning commission by notifying our future neighbours of the plans whose fruition they will someday be privileged to witness. Under the leadership and divine guidance of our beloved Bhagwan, the children of Rajneesh will establish a residential hostel and commune dedicated to public service and the dissemination of knowledge and understanding. In cooperation with local government social service foster home programs, the children of Rajneesh will care for and attend to the needs of their lost siblings. The disclosure regulations require that we inform you that the fosterlings of the proposed program would range in age from 12 to 17 years old. Under guidelines established by the state government of California, and implementations thereof by the county of Yolo, we have determined that the residence whose construction we contemplate could suitably house six (6) joint foster parents and as many as twelve (12) social service fosterlings. We pray that you will open your hearts to the needs of your lost brothers and sisters and will greet them with love and understanding when they move in next door. A public hearing on our proposal, which has already received all of the preliminary authorizations, must be scheduled before the local planning commission within the next thirty (30) days. While you are welcome to attend, we assure you that we will share news of our progress with you at all times, as the fellowship of our neighbours is a fundamental component of our ministry. For more information, you may call us at (916) 922-7484. In the Light of Bhagwan, Anand Shree Presba ASP:ms

“Bhagwan leads that others may follow.”

The Joneses were, to put it mildly, pushed to the edge of hysteria. They pored over the letter again and again. Mrs. Jones noticed something:

“They misspelled ‘neighborhood.’”

“No,“ said her husband. “That's the way they do it in England. It's the British spelling. Yeah, that's how they would do it.”

Mrs. Jones read aloud the small-print motto at the bottom of the page. It was in Times Roman and appeared to be a footer on formal stationery:

“Oh, ‘Bhagwan leads that others may follow.’ That sure is profound!” Her voice oozed sarcasm.

“Yeah, that's how they think,” said Mr. Jones.

Since it was a three-day weekend, the Joneses were unable to contact any county offices till Tuesday. They did try the information phone number, but it was always busy. (It was actually the dial-up number for the Big Blue BBS, an electronic bulletin board system loosely affiliated at the time with the Sacramento IBM PC Users Group. Even if they had managed to get through without the assistance of an auto-dialer, all they would have heard was the whine of a modem signal.) The Joneses, however, had other resources.

That Sunday, Mrs. Smith was sitting in church before services when her daughter urgently sought her out. The daughter had been dispensing church bulletins in the vestibule, but now she took refuge with her mother.

“Mom! The Joneses are circulating a petition in the vestibule! They're signing up people to protest the Bhagwan commune! I had to get out of there before I gave it all away by laughing!” The vestibule was indeed a ferment of activity. Solemn vows were taken that the Rajneeshee would never take over a West Sacramento neighborhood.

Later that same day, Mrs. Smith received a phone call from their bishop. He was recruiting her help in the anti-Bhagwan effort. The church had pledged its full support to the Jones petition. Mrs. Smith was in a quandary. Things were going too well. Would it spin completely out of control? (Had it already done so?) She cleared her throat: “Uh, Bishop, I think it would be wise to hold off a bit on this. We should wait to see more facts before we all get involved.”

The bishop knew his flock. He was instantly suspicious: “Say, do you already know more about this than I do?”

“Just let it sit for a bit, okay? Please?”

The bishop issued a stern warning to nip the problem in the bud and went quickly into damage-control mode. Mrs. Smith knew she'd been busted, although the details were still hidden. She figured she had at most another day or two before it all played out.

On Tuesday morning, a regular business day, Mr. Jones called the Yolo county planning commission with a frantic plea for more information: When would the Rajneeshee commune be up for public review? How had a major public utility been gulled into making a private sale of a prime parcel of land to a wacky mind-control cult? How much community pressure would be needed to persuade the county to quash the plans for a group home for juvenile delinquents? The planning commission staff was nonplussed. They had nothing on the docket that matched Mr. Jones's description. He read the letter to them. It rang no bells. They promised to do some research and get back to him. Mr. Jones was even more anxious after the call than he had been before. Previously he had been outraged and upset. Now he was also sure the fix was in and deals were being made behind his back.

The Joneses had canvassed their neighborhood: “Did you get your letter yet?” No one else had received the Bhagwan letter. One neighbor looked at it and said, “Oh, you got this first because it's next door to your house. Other people will probably get their letters later in the week.” Every detail was being interpreted by the participants as confirming their worst fears.

The bubble finally burst on Tuesday, when the reaction of the planning commission percolated throughout the church community of the Smiths and Joneses. The bishop talked with Mrs. Jones. “I think you should talk with your friend Mrs. Smith,” suggested the bishop. “I think she knows all about what's going on.”

And there was light.

Mrs. Jones called Mrs. Smith. After a little verbal fencing, Mrs. Jones came to the point: The bishop had spilled the beans. He hadn't really, but the notion of a hoax was now clearly out there. Mrs. Smith decided to declare victory and call an end to hostilities. The two women agreed to meet for lunch and hammer out a peace treaty.

On the designated lunch day, Mrs. Jones came by our office to collect Mrs. Smith. They paused at my office so that my coworker could introduce me to her friend. I smiled brightly and said hello. Mrs. Jones said, “How long did you work on that letter? It was quite something.”

Mrs. Smith airily replied, “Oh, we knocked it off during one lunch hour. I told Tony about the vacant lot and he wrote the letter”

Mrs. Jones's face registered disbelief: “You're kidding me. The British spelling? The goofy motto? The fake letterhead?”

“Oh,” said Mrs. Smith, ”Tony did all that. He's kind of an evil genius.”

It was a proud moment for me.

Postscript

Soon after the great Bhagwan hoax of 1985 in West Sacramento, the real Bhagwan tried to flee the country, but immigration officials caught up with him at the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina, and took him into custody. The guru copped a plea that resulted in his leaving the country after all. He adopted the new name of “Osho” and died in India in 1990.

The original hoax letter was framed by the Joneses, who hung it in their den as a conversation piece. I don't know if it's still there or if the prank war between the Smiths and Joneses ever broke out again. Almost exactly two years after the Bhagwan hoax, I received my initial appointment to the American River College mathematics faculty, where anyone can tell you I have been a model of dignity and restraint. The wild days of irresponsible youth are over.