PURELY COMMENTARY
Wallenberg's Valor Honored By University of Michigan
chitecture. His fellow student, the late
Sol King, engineered that task. That
Editor Emeritus
began the university's recognition of
the courage of a volunteer who went to
aoul Wallenberg is a name that Hungary at the behest of his Swedish
will always remain inerasable
compatriots and American encourage-
from the ranks of mankind's ment. It was a dangerous task and it
most admired courage in a period of needs unending recognition.
greatest distress for humanity. In an
Therefore the importance of the cur-
era when most statesmen of the world's
leading powers failed to come to the rent undertaking which assures ac-
rescue of Jews who were under a claim for the Wallenberg name on a
tyrant's edict for annihilation, this golbal basis.
Under the appealing title of the
Swedish native undertook a task of
Raoul Wallenberg Medal and Lecture
resisting Nazism and tyrannical rulers
Fund, the newly introduced project has
in a determination to save Jewish lives.
already raised $145,000 towards a goal
A million Hungarian victims perished,
but Wallenberg's heroic administrative of $250,000.
According to the ideal being pro-
means saved perhaps a hundred thou-
moted, the Wallenberg endowment fund
sand from the assigned camps.
"will allow a university committee to
Holding a degree in architecture
select a contemporary humanitarian of
from the University of Michigan, Raoul
international stature to receive this
Wallenberg is remembered in the series
of architectural lectures previously . prestigious award. Each medallist will
begun at the U-M by its college of ar- receive an honorarium and a citation,
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
R
and will deliver a public lecture that
will be published!"
The story of Raoul Wallenberg, the
1935 U-M graduate, will therefore be
told annually, uninterruptedly, infor-
matively, with deep appreciation of the
great act of valor and fearless courage.
The new means of making the
Wallenberg record a continuity en-
courages widest support. The advance-
ment of the idea is being conducted by
a committee under the leadership of
Prof. Irene Butter of the University of
Michigan School of Public Health, and
in the greater Detroit area by William
Yolles.
The idea needs encouragement and
the aim of reaching the $250,000 goal
should be attained before the end of this
year. Therefore, this endorsement of the
compelling idea in the hope that the
necessary funds will be made available
immediately. Hopefully, this aim will
promptly become a reality.
2Mwoe
WO"
Raoul Wallenberg
Testing The Lexicon: Satirizing The Liberal
olitical, social, economic, philan-
thropic and even the religiously
controversial items in life often
confront disputes. Nomenclature plays
a role. Verbialogy is important. The way
the fundamentalist spells them out is
seldom in the same tune as the civil
libertarian's. The disputants need not
be "card carriers!' They just need to dif-
fer and that often creates ideological
warfare.
This became apparent even prior to
the presidential election two quadren-
nials back when one political designa-
tion was to the dislike of some standard
bearers. There was no longer a hiding
by the standard bearers of some impor-
tant groups in the American system
who began to call liberal a menace to
America.
Indeed, for a few years already the
response to the warnings against
"liberalism" in the American way of life
gains evidence among some members of
Congress who stopped boasting
liberalism. Some of the legislators
began to resort instead to the term
"progressive!" Progressive, is indeed,
one of the synonyms for liberal.
A study of the dictionary carries
another warning to the progressives.
After all, the equated liberal designa-
p
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Vol. XCIV No. 2
2
September 9, 1988
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1988
tion is as appealing to the charity
dispenser as it is to the politician. It has
much to do with philanthropy because
to be liberal is to be generous.
How, therefore, are politicians to
react to the repeated outcry against
liberalism? Does it also imply abandon-
ment of the term and the word in a state
of panic over a new political trend that
makes liberal a word to be abhorred?
The politician especially is compell-
ed to turn to the lexicon and learn all
the meanings for the word now flaunted
in some areas as anti-American. It has
many meanings. Since it is being
tested, the many meanings listed in the
Random House Dictionary should be
taken into account. Here is that long
list:
lib-er-al, adj. 1. favorable to pro-
gress or reform, as in religious or
political affairs. 2. (often cap.) noting
or pertaining to a political party ad-
vocating measures of progressive
political reform. 3. of or pertaining
to representational forms of govern-
ment rather than aristocracies and
monarchies. 4. of, pertaining to, bas-
ed on, or advocating liberalism. 5.
favorable to or in accord with con-
cepts of maximum individual
freedom possible, esp. as
guaranteed by law and secured by
governmental protection of civil
liberties. 6. favoring or permitting
freedom of action, esp. with respect
to matters of personal belief or ex-
pression: The government followed
a liberal policy toward the country's
artists and writers. 7. free from pre-
judice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal
attitude toward religon. 8. open-
minded or tolerant, esp. free of or
not bound by traditional or conven-
tional ideas, values, etc. 9.
characterized by generosity and
willingness to give in large amounts:
a liberal patron; a liberal donor. 10.
given freely or abundantly: a liberal
donation. 11. not strict or rigorous;
free; not literal: a liberal interpreta-
tion of a rule. 12. of, pertaining to, or
befitting a freeman. —n. 13. a person
of liberal principles or views, esp. in
religion or politics. 14. (often cap.) a
member of a liberal party in politics,
esp. of the Liberal party in Great
Britain. —Syn. 1. progressive. 7.
broad-minded, un-prejudiced. 9.
generous, beneficient, charitable,
open-handed, munificent, unstint-
ing, lavish. 10. See ample. —Ant. 1.
reactionary. 7. intolerant. 9, 10.
niggardly.
There is such a variety of disputes
in the battle for the presidency that the
injection of hatred for the very term
"liberal" may soon be abandoned.
Nevertheless, the conservatism of many
disputants may still inject a
divisiveness into the political an-
tagonisms of our time.
The eminent Jewish scholar and
philosopher Prof. Morris R. Cohen, who
was frequently quoted in the media,
gave this definition for liberalism in the
political campaigns of early 1930s:
Like science, liberalism in-
sists on a critical examination of
all our beliefs, principles, or
habitual hypotheses so that they
will be progressively better
founded in experience and
reason.
With so much under consideration,
so many synonyms to tackle, there is a
chance for panic inspired by the word
liberal which many would now
abandon.
Is there a substitute? Must one em-
brace "conservative" or should one in-
stead be "reactionary" or "right of
center" or "leaning leftward?"
President Woodrow Wilson, when
he was president of Princeton Univer-
sity, had a definition for conservative.
He described it as:
Generally young men are
regarded as radicals. This is a
popular misconception. The
most conservative persons I
ever met are college under-
graduates.
Liberals may be amazed to learn
that there is reference to them in Scrip-
tures. We find these lines in Isaiah 32:8:
But the liberal deviseth
liberal things; and in liberal
things shall he continue.
The war against liberals raises the
question whether the ultra-
conservatives would submit to being
called "illiberal!' Therefore another of
my discoveries.
The word flashed in its uniqueness
in an interesting volume I found among
my many hidden books. It appears in a
1921-26 volume of 136 pages by Dr. G.
Frank Lydston. The title of the book is:
That Bogey-Man, The Jew. It was
among the first published condemna-
tions of the anti-Semitism of Henry
Ford I. The word illiberality is applied
to the auto magnate, the elder Henry
Ford, for his resort to anti-Semitism.
Here is the definition for the word
in the Random House Dictionary:
il-lib-er-al adj. 1. narrow-
minded; bigoted. 2. Chiefly
Literary, without culture;
unscholarly; vulgar. 3. Rare, not
generous in giving; niggardly;
stingy.
The conservative war on liberals
and liberalism need not be abused by
the accumulated definitions. The defin-
ed illiberalism has a place in the
assembled terminology. If it is part of
the name-calling that becomes a factor
in political campaigning then it is a
perpetuation of the American way, cer-
tain to survive. We can even expect that
on the morning after the presidential
election on Nov. 8 or at the latest the
day after the 1989 inauguration, we
may again be blessed with the salute:
Respect for the Liberal!