Address at the Annual Dinner of the YMCA of Greater New York

"Those three Congressmen were right. The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit. But we’re not apologetic about it."
New York City • November 19, 1963

Last week three Members of Congress charged that the Peace Corps is in danger of becoming “an enthusiastic crusade.”

I was astonished. Agencies of the Government are often called “bureaucratic” and “bungling.” But what agency could survive the charge of being either enthusiastic or crusading?

My staff reacted as I expected. Like Texans accused of modesty. Or the Mets accused of winning. Or Radcliffe and Harvard seniors of being virtuous.

One veteran of two decades of government service suggested that we sue for libel on the grounds that his reputation as a bureaucrat was at stake."It’s a new kind of McCarthyism,” he said. “Being accused of enthusiasm is something I’ll never live down. And a crusader, too --- why look at General Eisenhower; he never will get over leading that Crusade in Europe!”

The Peace Corps has been damned for many sins to which we cannot lay claim --- from “kiddy korps” in the early days to the more recent charges, by the Communists that the Peace Corps is a “fetus of neo-colonialism” and a “Trojan Horse bearing weapons of cultural imperialism.”

But tonight, I have a confession to make.

Those three Congressmen were right. The Peace Corps is guilty of enthusiasm and a crusading spirit. But we’re not apologetic about it.

What Gayle Lathrup said of the YMCA of Greater New York can also be said of the Peace Corps: “We must not be content to keep doing the same old things in the same old way. We cannot coast. Movements like ours have been known to go through three stages: (1) Inspiration. (2) Organization. (3) Fossilization. Institutional hardening of the arteries can be prevented only if our leaders keep abreast of contemporary trends. Our leaders must be innovators and agents of change - -- not just keepers of the institutional status quo.”

This philosophy keeps the Peace Corps on a constant search for new ways to confront the world’s needs. Take, for example, our work in the slums of Latin America. When several Latin American governments requested that we send Volunteers to the barriadas of their great cities, a chorus of voices rang out it can’t be done!” Americans cannot live under those circumstances.”

There was reason to their rhyme. Any of you who have left the great office buildings and the hotels and the tour buses and walked where forgotten campesinos dwell in squalor without work or hope of a job, where a single barrio contains 1,000 unchecked cases or raging cholera and where nine human beings, a man and wife and seven. children, exist in a six-by-six thatched hut with a dirt floor and a single bed - anyone who has seen these conditions might echo, “It can’t be done!”

But Peace Corps Volunteers are doing it. Volunteers went to Arequipa, Peru, for example, to share the conditions of people who lived in abject misery ----- no running water or plumbing, no electricity or heat, crumbling hovels which scarcely afforded shelter from wind or rain and no tools to rebuild them. They found themselves under violent attack from the communists who harassed them with slogans scrawled on walls and walks, threatened to brand and burn them, accused them of poisoning children with tainted food.

But the volunteers moved in and went right to work. They helped build schools and houses taught hygiene and child care to mothers – provided medical clinics established sewing classes and offered all their capacities to elevate the lives of the people.

Soon their enthusiasm affected the middle class of Arequipa. Hitherto indifferent to their own slums, they became disturbed, began to come to the barriadas to work with the Volunteers. According to the American consul, the Volunteers are now so well accepted “that the demands for their assistance cannot be met. They have become so revered by the townspeople,” he reported, “that the communists have ceased intimidating them out of fear of public reaction,” And now they have received a silver medal from the President of the country and the people of Arequipa for their work in the slums.

Enthusiasm paid off.

In Venezuela the Peace Corps works side-by-side with the YMCA. We have found what you had already discovered ---- conditions in the poor, crowded urban sections of Caracas where young people grow up in substandard housing, with insufficient food, limited formal education, little sanitation, few jobs and daily companionship with crime and delinquency. More than sixty percent of the slum dwellers in Venezuela are between the ages of 14 and 19.

To help these young people, the “Y” has established neighborhood centers. Volunteers are working at these centers in seven cities. Try to tell them that “enthusiasm” and a “crusading spirit” are out of date. Daily they must deal with unemployment, delinquency, and anti-American passions. The walls of one slum where Volunteers are working are smeared with slogans like “CUBA SI YANKIS NO” and it was in this section that Vice President Nixon was stoned in 1958.

But the real challenge is the youth. Children come to the centers not only to play baseball, volleyball, basketball and other-games, but also to seek affection, guidance and friendship. Volunteers become more than recreation leaders --- in the spirit of the “Y” they must become counselors, confidants, teachers and friends.

Their tools are patience, resourcefulness, initiative --- and enthusiasm. A lack of facilities does not discourage them. Peace Corps Volunteers have established three new YMCA neighborhood centers. They did this by getting donations of land and building material. The work was done by the people who caught the Peace Corps germ of enthusiasm. Two Volunteers, Will Pryor and Jim Oliver, have completed one of the new centers in Valencia. It’s located on several acres of land which are beautifully landscaped. The people of Valencia are thrilled. They see their young people engaged in wholesome activities with a new kind of Yankee --- the Peace Corps Volunteers who rolled up their sleeves and dug in right beside them. They also have an outstanding field for their national game, bolas criollas, which the Volunteers have learned to play.

The effect of the Peace Corps Volunteers has been far reaching.

Recently two Volunteers were walking through a barrio and came upon a street fight. They recognized the boys beating up another boy as a gang which had been disrupting their “Y” activities. The Volunteers stepped in to break up the fight and found themselves attacked by the gang. Then something very interesting happened. Observers on Latin America, and slum areas everywhere, for that matter, were amazed at the outcome.

The older men looking on the fight came to the defense of the Peace Corps Volunteers.

Not to the defense of the gang. Not to chase off the Volunteers. But to help them.

They pulled the young toughs off and sent them on their way in a fashion that was bound to sting for days. Anyone who has seen the reaction of adults to teenage slum fights knows the “outsider” does not come out of it very well. The Volunteers won that victory because they were not “outsiders.” They are respected members of the community, and they have earned that respect.

Four Volunteers started a “Y” summer camp near Caracas. “Six months ago,” says one of them, “this was a forest. Now there are eleven brand new tents. The ground has been cleared; we have a kitchen and latrines; a basketball back board and a number of play areas. We’re in business.”

Take another example: A number of “experts” raised their eyebrows when we were asked to send instructors to teach in Latin American universities. “You will run into students who are virulently anti-American,” we were warned."They play campus politics for keeps, knowing that it may be their steppingstone to future success. They can be fanatical.”

We knew that. But we also knew that universities in Latin America are the cradle of future leaders --- political, professional, technical and cultural. We knew too, that they play significant roles in contemporary life. To avoid them would be to brand “off-limits” opportunities Americans have not often had in Latin America.

As was expected, the Peace Corps Volunteers did have confrontations with the communists. This is a sign of the impact the Volunteer teachers were having. At one university left-wing students and faculty members demanded the ouster of Volunteer teachers unless their academic credentials were made available. The university administration approved the request and the Volunteers presented their degrees, all of them satisfactory. Now, there’s a twist to the story. The university administration decided the communists had a good idea, so they requested the academic backgrounds of all faculty members. It turned out that several teachers who professed communism had inadequate credentials. The Peace Corps Volunteers won an unexpected victory, and the communist’s demagoguery was exposed for what it was. The Volunteers followed up this vote of confidence by getting down to the business of teaching and doing a good job of it.

Today, 143 Volunteers are teaching in 38 universities in 7 countries in Latin America. We have already received requests for three hundred additional Volunteers to teach on the university level next year and we intend to fill those requests.

Still, a third program which the skeptics advised us to ignore in Latin America is educational television. But we’re in it.

Colombia’s government owned television network is one of the largest in Latin America. Within its reach are 85% of the population and 94%of the nation’s schools. The Peace Corps program will affect approximately1500 of those schools.

Sixteen Peace Corps Volunteers are already down there. They are helping Colombia co-workers to plan, create, write and produce programs.

Other Volunteers arrive in January to serve in remote rural areas where the programs will be received; they will visit classrooms, distribute instructional materials and help Colombian teachers to use educational programs. They will be the first Americans to work closely with the people of Colombia in a massive educational campaign. It can be the beginning of an extraordinary effort to bring education to the campesinos of rural Colombia.

Peace Corps Volunteers returning from Latin America tell us that only extraordinary efforts will work now. Anything less than “an enthusiastic crusade” will be too little and too late.

The communists know this is true. And it accounts for the disproportionate influence they exert in Latin America, especially among student groups. They have found that it is not necessary to be a majority group to change things. What they lack in numbers, they make up in zeal, organization and enthusiasm. Communist student leaders in Latin America place their highest premium on dedication and hard work. Although relatively small in terms of membership, they are able to win and hold controlling positions in key organizations. To them, their cause is a crusade.

This enthusiasm is not limited to students. Ambassador John Bartlow Martin recently pointed out that the hard core communists throughout Latin America are marked for one common characteristic: zeal. A leading theoretician of the extreme left in Latin America has made that clear. He contends that the only solution for Latin America today is to destroy its feudal structure once and for all. He tells us that agrarian reform is doomed. “It can only be brought about,” he says, “by revolution, with a gun in hand.”

Listen to him:

“Revolution? Yes, because only revolution can destroy feudalism-"not aspirin and good wishes.
“Revolution? Yes, because as shown, armed revolution can destroy forever the armies which guard the old order.
“Revolution? Yes, because only a revolution can bring about the structural changes necessary to modernize our countries, put stagnating natural resources to work, recoup ill-spent and estranged resources, carry through agrarian reform, create an internal market, diversity production, promote popular education and industrialization.
“Revolution: You cry out and put your hands to your heads, weeping to see the violence and the spilling of blood. Yes, because unfortunately, it has never, been possible to convince the ruling classes of a feudal country that their hour is come ……Blood? Yes, historical delay is paid for in blood. From Spartacus to Fidel Castro, through Protestant, English, French, United States, Mexican and Russian revolutions, revolutions have been violent. Revolutions are not made by Mickey Mouse. They are made by hungry, courageous, angry, desperate men.”
There is one alternative. The men who subscribe to it are crusaders.

But is it the only alternative? Are they the only crusaders in this Hemisphere?

I don’t think so. There is another alternative -- it grows out of our own experience. Americans believe profound social and economic revolutions can be made by peaceful means and without destroying individual freedom. We believe it -- because it has happened to us in this country.

Building on the hard-fought principles won in the original American revolution, we have seen -- and been part of -- a profound continuing revolution. The American Revolution placed on our people the responsibility for reordering their own social structure when change became imperative -- and we proved that we can do it.

We did not barter freedom for bread.

We did not sacrifice human dignity for a higher standard of living.

We did not sell our soul for a mess of pottage.

We did prove –and we are continuing to prove -- that revolutions can be made with reason instead of rifles.

We proved these things to ourselves. Now we must help others to prove that they, too, can accomplish similar goals. In this Hemisphere especially, where we live next door to nations whose people are awakening slowly to the realization that they want change and have the strength to seize it, we must not lose the chance we now have.

We have an opportunity to help other people carry on their own crusade for social betterment, for justice and freedom, for human dignity, for change and progress. They are actually inviting us to come in and help. We are not shoving our way in. We are not pleading for the privilege of serving. We are not buying an open door. We are being asked in. And because they have learned that the Peace Corps comes not to impose North American solutions on Latin American problems but to help discover Latin American solutions to Latin American problems, we are being welcomed in growing numbers.

It is not a challenge for men of timid faith, afraid to reveal their enthusiasm, frightened by the prospect of taking part in the dangerous turmoil that is rapidly changing our world. Only men and women of strong faith need apply. Only people willing to be part of an “enthusiastic crusade.”

This is one reason why we have so much in common with the YMCA; our kinship of spirit is the reason we are working so closely with your colleagues in Latin America. I have never known the “Y” to be apologetic about an enthusiastic and crusading spirit. George Petrie would never have organized the YMCA of New York 110 years ago if he had been reserved in his enthusiasm. And the world would be poorer in many respects if the “Y” had not been willing to crusade in many directions, leading to the invention of basketball and volleyball and to sponsorship of the world’s first professional football team to the founding of the Boy Scouts of America and the Camp Fire Girls Movement; to the prisoner-of-war aid in the Civil War, the AEF welfare work in World War I, and your USO work in World War II.

Long ago you discovered what the Peace Corps is discovering about the capacities of young people. There is no limit to their resourcefulness once they are challenged.

William James new this. At the end of the 19th century he threw out ne challenge to educators and statesmen: discover the moral equivalent to war. James knew that war :satisfies a primitive longing of men which will never be extinguished: to lose yourself in a common cause which claims the whole man.

War, so he says, shows human nature at its highest dynamic. “If peace tempts men and women to unmanly ease,” he wrote, “if gain and pleasure become their absorbing goals,” this longing may be driven underground. There it remains in unconscious readiness to break forth in international crisis, often weighing the scales of public opinion in favor of war.

There is plenty of supporting evidence for this theory. Thomas Mann n in 1914 praised war for “its acceptance of life as danger,” for “the absolute staking of the fundamental powers of body and soul.” In The Last Enemy Richard Hillary writes that “we were selfish and egocentric without any Holy Grail in which we could lose ourselves. War provided it in a delightfully palatable form.”

A delightfully palatable form. War was never that, but even if it had been, it can never be again. What is palatable about Hiroshima and Nagasaki? About Buchenwald?

No, there must be an alternative. And there is. It has been with us forever. The Peace Corps Volunteer discovered it who wrote from East Africa, “People die here for want of so little.” Another reported that in the middle of a class he was conducting in painting, a little girl turned to him and asked, “What is the color of poverty?” He suddenly discovered he alternative. So did the Volunteer who wrote from the Philippines:"The first sick child you want to pick up and fix up and love. The tenth you want to run from; the 100th, you wish you were blind and couldn’t see.”

These are Americans who are giving a new meaning to the word “crusade."Freedom, they believe, is a crusade--to be carried enthusiastically around the earth. These are Americans who have not lost the enthusiasm and audacity of the American Revolution. They are not soft or afraid. Their ideals have not disappeared in a morass of automobiles and backyard patios. They have ingrained in them the basic principles of America. And they can be found in Brazil and Nepal, Tanganyika and Malaya in every corner of the developing world.

The Book of Proverbs says: “Where there is not vision, the people perish.” The Old Testament is not speaking about the vision of prophecy the ability to foretell the future. It calls for the vision of being able to see clearly the world around you -- to understand what is demanded of you--to know what you must sacrifice and accomplish. This is the kind of vision our Volunteers are seeking for America. On their success will depend not merely our continued greatness as a nation, but our survival as a people.

Peace requires the simple but powerful recognition that what we have in common as human beings is more important and crucial than what divides us.
RSSPCportrait
Sargent Shriver
Get the Quote of the Week in Your Inbox