Sometimes we think we’re making lots of progress in the war versus poverty. We felt that way about eight months ago when, Bishop Fulton Sheen appointed a priest to a brand-new job in the Rochester diocese -- a Job called “Vicar to the Poor.”
The New York Times ran the story on page one -- proving it was red-hot news. So I bragged about, this accomplishment one night to Father Dan Berrigan, the Jesuit poet and philosopher.
Father Dan looked at me and said: --"He should have appointed a vicar to the rich.”
Father Berrigan was right.
The crisis of America today is not in the ghetto -- but in suburbia.
Places like Watts or Harlem are not caused by what the Poor have done they are caused by what the rest of us have not done.
We are not in touch with the agony of poverty, only the image of poverty.
We only know about slums by what we read in the paper and see on TV. We don’t live in them. We don’t smell them. We don’t sweat in the summer and freeze in the winter. Instead, we just sit in our soft chairs and read the papers. Then we turn to the sports page, or the society gage, or Dow Jones averages.
We do not question our suburban values.
We are more worried about doing things according to, the American way of Life, than by the Christian or Judaic way of life. Pastor Arthur Simon, a Lutheran minister on the lower east side of New York recently wrote:
“Parents would not rejoice if their children decided to live in the slums of a city or in some underdeveloped country. They would be surprised and caught off guard -- these parents would be disappointed and anxious, afraid something must be wrong -- because their real concern is that their children enjoy a respectable, self-indulgent life!!”
We learned that fact in the Peace Corps. Parents were the biggest single obstacle to recruiting. They were terrified of their boy or girl being alone in a town 250 miles up country in Africa. They thought at the very least they would be assaulted --at the worst eaten. I used to assure groups of students and, their parents that no Peace Corps volunteer had ever been eaten. We have never taken the trouble to know people different from ourselves.
Rather than “knowing a poor person,” it is easier to know about a poor person. “You go your way and I’ll go mine,” is the great American slogan. Thirty years ago, some people believed in a foreign relations policy of isolationism. Today, we have isolationism again -- not among foreigners, but among ourselves. Countless Americans don’t want to live with each other, but just alongside each other.
Father Berrigan sums all this up in one of his poems. “The poor have it hard, the saying goes. Well, the hardest thing they have is us.”
What do we do about us?
How do we change us?
The theme of your conference is, “Responsibility of Advertising in a Changing Society.” But advertising has a greater chance and challenge and power to change our society than any force in American life. The power to change us.
You have the tools and the know how to whet men’s desires, unlock their Minds influence their-tastes and judgments.
You are the trusted advisers to the giant corporations whose products give our society its character and its prosperity.
You have access to the media. Hour in and hour out on television and radio in newspapers and magazines -- on billboards -- buttons -- bumper stickers -your messages buffet the American consciousness.
It would be incredible if this “tornado of imperatives” did not produce continuous change throughout our society. And in fact you do produce that continuous change.
You can persuade millions of people that flying is safer than driving. You can persuade a tough-minded company to paint its airplanes pink! You can make an added half-inch on a cigarette seem like the greatest innovation since the steam engine!
Advertising is unquestionably the most compelling force for change in America today.
What changes do we need?
We need to change the attitudes and knowledge of the poor about the rich and the rich about the poor.
We need to get out the facts:
- 70% of the poor are white.
- The poor want to work, they do not want to loaf.
- The poor want life, liberty and pursuit of happiness just like the rich.
How can you change the attitudes about the poor among the rich? How can you contribute to the “domestic tranquility?” How do you make the poor consumers of the good things of our society? The good life promised on the ads and the commercials.
The poor may not have the means to become consumers, but they do have the desire. On the average, the poor watch television about five hours a day. That’s a lot of commercials! They listen to the radio. They know what the good things are. And they want them. They want them so badly that they are on every sucker list. They’re the prey of the loan shark. The “no money down and a life time to pay” racket. When the welfare check comes in, the price goes up. Out of their pittance, they pay more interest than the rich. Generally, they are stuck with poorer quality at a higher price than those of us who can afford to be choosy.
As the poor suffer under the constant pain of debt and the terror or repossession, garnishment and law suit they become enraged at the system which they can’t seem to beat.
It is no coincidence that when violence flares in the ghetto, it is the shopkeeper who gets looted and burned out. The poor do not want something for nothing. But they are tired of getting nothing for something!
Here is where we need your help. You have the power to influence the aspirations of the poor. It is your responsibility to assist us in the fulfillment of these aspirations.
There are at least three things to be done.
First, there is a responsibility to bring to the poor the basic facts of consumer education. Not on a hit-or-miss ,basis. Not in a few scattered classes in night schools or community centers.
I am talking about a massive indoctrination program using all the techniques, all the media which are at your disposal. Through you, American industry is spending billions of dollars to say “Buy. Buy. Buy.” And because of these messages our economy grows. We should have enough resources to say to 30 million people, “Buy wisely. Buy wisely. Buy wisely.” And through this message our economy will grow better.
Under the leadership of the Four A’s, a massive program of consumer education could be beamed over television and radio, displayed at point of purchase, distributed by direct mail, prepared as a curriculum for community action agencies, adult education classes, churches.
If the poor could be taught about credit, installment contracts, down payments, illegitimate sales practices, consumer rights and responsibilities, they would immediately be less poor. They would buy more wisely. They would not be spending desperately needed dollars for carrying charges on goods and services they don’t really need.
There are laws against the seduction of minor children. We call it statutory rape. Why not stronger warnings and stronger laws against economic rape, which is just as vicious and disgusting.
I am not wise enough in the ways of advertising to tell you how to mount such a campaign. But Bill Colihan of Young and Rubicam has already put a lot of thought and planning into such a program. The OEO and other Federal agencies are interested. With the entire advertising profession behind it, I believe this first vital step can become a reality.
Even more important than education, however, is participation. The poor can be taught to become better and more intelligent consumers. But a more significant objective would be to make them partners in the entrepreneurial process. Or in simpler terms, to set them up in business!
As it is now, the ghetto store is generally an absentee owner’s store. The proprietor doesn’t live there. He opens at nine, takes in the money all day, and goes home at five. He plants his “roses in the suburbs” but doesn’t plant his “profits in the neighborhood.”
Encourage the corporations you advise to bring the poor into the mainstream of buying and selling.
They have dealerships, distributorships, franchise operations, owned and operated retail outlets, all of which could provide partnership opportunities for the residents of the neighborhoods they serve.
The large retail chains should be encouraged to put up stores in the ghetto, and in rural communities, in which the poor could be trained as sales, service and management personnel in which residents could be involved on a profit-sharing basis, and in which they could have the pride of ownership instead of the shame of indebtedness.
Sears Roebuck has done this throughout Latin America. There are literally hundreds of opportunities to show the same consideration to our own people here at home.
But beyond education and participation, the only way this 30 million person market can be redeemed is by increasing its productivity. It is axiomatic that the most meaningful solution to poverty is a job that pays a living wage.
The companies you represent have thousands of jobs which can be opened to the poor. You, their marketing advisers, can show them how jobs for them can open up this lost market to them.
As private industry makes producers of the poor, they automatically become consumers. As they develop skills, they develop pride and this pride can be translated into better housing, better family life, more promise for their children.
I sincerely believe that your most important responsibility to change our society lies in communicating this message: “It is to the best interest of business to end poverty in America.” As Tex Thornton, President of Litton Industries, has said “In terms of the economic benefit and in terms of savings and the cost of relief, crime and institutional care, there is very much in it for us as businessmen.”
But beyond economic benefit, beyond savings, there is a larger self-interest which concerns the strength and safety of the nation as a whole.
The spirt of a nation cannot be maintained when one-fifth of its citizens are increasingly alienated, increasingly disaffected and increasingly vulnerable to irresponsible calls to violence!!
The war we stand most in danger of losing is not in Vietnam, but right here in the streets and fields of America. The green berets, the marines, the foot-slogging soldiers will not desert or defect until their job is done.
But there is a very real danger that we will desert and defect here at home before our own bitter war is won. A great creative effort is necessary to communicate the meaning and significance of the restoration of 30 million people to productive citizenship. You can help to do that job. Not through love, though if we do not love the poor, we cannot abide ourselves. Not through service, --although if we do not serve we cannot survive. But through the simple fact that it must be done. And that America is rich enough, strong enough, vital enough, and productive enough to do it.
