In A Democracy Dissent Is An Act

The American Public Has Become So Conditioned By Crises, By Warnings, By Words, That There Are Few, Other Than The Young, Who Protest Against What Is Happening.

Of All The Joint Ventures In Which We Might Engage, The Most Productive, In My View, Is Educational Exchange. I Have Always Had Great Difficulty-since The Initiation Of The Fulbright Scholarships In 1946-in Trying To Find The Words That Would Persuasively Explain That Educational Exchange Is Not Merely One Of Those Nice But Marginal Activities In Which We Engage In International Affairs, But Rather, From The Standpoint Of Future World Peace And Order, Probably The Most Important And Potentially Rewarding Of Our Foreign-policy Activities.

There Is Nothing Obscure About The Objectives Of Educational Exchange. Its Purpose Is To Acquaint Americans With The World As It Is And To Acquaint Students And Scholars From Many Lands With America As It Is-not As We Wish It Were Or As We Might Wish Foreigners To See It, But Exactly As It Is-which By My Reckoning Is An "image" Of Which No American Need Be Ashamed.

It Is In A Way A Mystery That, Instead Of Demanding That Their Governments Give Primary Attention To Their Own Needs And Aspirations, Most Of The Citizens Of Big Counties-those, That Is, That Have The Status Of Being "powers" In The World-far From Being Self-centered Or Materialistic As They Are Commonly Credited With Being, The Ordinary Citizen And His Elected Representative All Too Often Turn Out To Be Romantics, Ready And Eager To Sacrifice Programs Of Health, Education And Welfare For The Power And Pride Of The Nation.

Science Has Radically Changed The Conditions Of Human Life On Earth. It Has Expanded Our Knowledge And Our Power, But Not Our Capacity To Use Them With Wisdom.