Sargent Shriver and Peace Building

The Sargent Shriver Peace Institute (SSPI) is committed to studying, communicating, and advancing the theory and practice of the method in peacebuilding inculcated by Sargent Shriver in the public policies and programs he created during his long, successful career as a public servant.

Sargent Shriver created practical, effective public programs that not only meet the needs of people and their communities, but also build peace in the course of meeting those needs. These include the Peace Corps, and the programs of America’s multi-faceted ‘War on Poverty’: Head Start, Community Action, Poverty Law, Job Corps, Vista, Foster Grandparents, among others.

In a speech about the Peace Corps delivered at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok on January 28, 1964, Sargent Shriver expressed his fundamental understanding of peacebuilding:

Volunteers go overseas not merely as willing and skilled workers, but as representatives, as living examples, of the most powerful idea of all: the idea that free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of alien tradition and great disparities of wealth, of old hostilities and new nationalisms, to meet with other men and women on the common ground of service to human welfare and human dignity.

As Sargent Shriver understood and practiced it, individuals and groups “build peace” when they cross boundaries of race, class, culture, politics and religion to reach common agreement on courses of action that advance human dignity and welfare. Understood this way, the primary obstacle to peace is the fragmentation of people and communities that give rise to misunderstanding, to mistrust, to hostility, and in the extreme, to violence.

SSPI is committed to advancing the theory and practice of method in peacebuilding in domestic and international contexts.

Sargent Shriver and the War on Poverty Method in Social Change

This paper analyzes the “method” of social change practiced by Sargent Shriver in leading the War on Poverty in the 1960s, and it invites discussion about the current relevance and value of this legacy in ending 21st Century poverty. Other papers at the Daughter of Charity Health System Conference on Poverty discuss specific policies to change health care and insurance, to enhance after-school programs to bring out the best in kids, and early education programs to stimulate optimum development for poor children.

Clearly, we need targeted, feasible and effective responses to all the challenges poverty presents. However, to give direction to our efforts, we must also ask (and answer) a more fundamental set of questions: What do we do when we create the social changes that will end poverty, and how do we know we are on the right path, doing the right thing? Sargent Shriver understood the importance of these questions—perhaps never so viscerally as the day President Johnson tabbed him to lead America’s War on Poverty.

On February 1, 1964—barely two months after the assassination of President Kennedy, and the morning after returning from a grueling, three-week trip to Asia as Director of the Peace Corps—Sargent Shriver received a phone call at home from President Johnson. The President informed Shriver that at a press conference that afternoon he would be announcing his appointment as the Director of the War on Poverty. The President went on to say that Shriver would have a budget of $1 billion, and 60 days to conceive, design, administratively structure, and get the program approved by Congress. When Shriver protested, the President responded: “You’ve got the responsibility, you’ve got the authority, you’ve got the power, you’ve got the money. Now, you may not have the glands.” Shriver’s reply: “I’ve got plenty of glands.”

In addition to glands, Shriver had a method.

On Method

The method practiced by Sargent Shriver in formulating and conducting the War on Poverty is analogous to the method practiced by scientists in their diverse fields of inquiry. So understood, “method” is not a recipe, not a technique, not a set of rules, not a magic spell—but “a framework for collaborative creativity”—a framework for creativity that yields progressive and cumulative results.

As Sargent Shriver expressed it in a speech he delivered shortly after his appointment:

President Johnson declared this a war against poverty in order to mobilize the full will of America. We do not yet know all that needs to be known about the job ahead. We do not know how to go to the moon yet either, but we are going to get there. Fifty years ago, we did not know how to eliminate typhoid fever, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, or paralytic polio. But we found out. Twenty-five years ago, we didn’t know how to split the atom, but we found out. We may not yet know exactly how to go about ending poverty and abolishing war, but we are going to find out.

In the natural sciences, “method” involves the careful, collaborative, and recurrent exercise of human intelligence and integrity on the part of scientists—moving them in their quest for explanatory knowledge of the physical world from data to question to hypothesis to testing to conclusion to independent validation. So it is with “method” in social change. In the war against poverty led by Sargent Shriver, “method” involves the careful, collaborative, and recurrent exercise of human intelligence, integrity, and compassion on the part those working for social change—moving them in their quest to reverse the root causes of poverty from encounter with persons, to appreciation and respect for the knowledge, skills and values they represent, to candid confrontation of disvalues and deficits, to an openness to being challenged and changed, to joint decision making, collaborative action, and ongoing revision.

There are differences, of course. First, with a focus on the world of nature, natural science aims at discovering empirical knowledge in which value judgments have no constitutive role. As a function of its method, natural science limits itself to questions that can be settled by an appeal to the norms and standards of observation and experiment. In contrast, with a focus on the human world, efforts to end poverty aim at developing policies and programs that are grounded in values and constituted by value judgments. As a function of its method, social change and peacebuilding initiatives open themselves to questions that can be settled only by an appeal to the norms and standards of human flourishing.

Second, natural scientists today spend many years acquiring the education and training needed to practice scientific method and to advance their fields of inquiry. In doing so, they ride collectively on the shoulders of the giants who preceded them—especially the giants of the 17th and l 8th centuries that practiced—and in their practice thematized what we now refer to as modem science. In contrast, whereas scientific method has been developed, practiced, refined and applied for over 300 years, the development and formulation of method in peacebuilding and social change is still comparatively young. In the fields of peacebuilding and social change, we are still in an era of the giants—and Sargent Shriver is one of them; he is a Galileo of our time.

Method in the War on Poverty

In mounting and conducting the War on Poverty, Sargent Shriver and his staff at the Office of Economic Opportunity practiced a method of social change guided by a set of core values. All of the programs developed during this period—Community Action, Job Corps, Head Start, VISTA, and Legal Services, to name but a few—emerged as products of this “framework for collaborative creativity.” Key components of the method are enumerated below, and illustrated in words Sargent Shriver used in speeches he delivered at the time.

Method in social change is grounded in an authentic encounter with persons.

Only with a profound understanding of the nature of poverty will come answers to the problems of poverty in our communities nationwide. Take a simple word like “poor.” Have we succeeded in making Americans aware of what that means? Have we succeeded in making Americans aware of what it feels like to be without hope…to be without the self-respect of a weekly paycheck…to be without the skills to earn one? Have we shown what it means to a young man when he can’t read an application blank for even a menial job? Have we translated to our fellow Americans how a mother feels when she can’t do arithmetic well enough to help her seven-year-old son with his homework? The plain answer is that we have not. And many of us do not want to.

If public relations means putting one’s best foot forward, the War on Poverty is the precise opposite. We are constantly revealing this Nation’s worst foot. We are forcing it into the public consciousness, calling attention to the fact that it is ugly, clumsy and clubbed. If public relations means a balm that soothes us by smelling sweet and covering blemishes, the War on Poverty is an itching powder that keeps us scratching at the sores of our society. If public relations means shaping ideas to make them acceptable to diverse groups, the War on Poverty is just the opposite. We are trying to reshape the groups to conform to the idea—the central concept—that if the poor are to be helped out of poverty they must do it themselves on their own terms, not on ours.

Method in social change is guided by respect for the knowledge, skills and values of the people it serves, and seeks “maximum feasible participation.”

The best way for the Federal Government to mount a broad attack on poverty at the community level is to support and stimulate community initiative and leadership.

Poverty has as many different faces as the different places where it is found. What will work in Cleveland may not work in Los Angeles, and a program Chicago might use to fight urban poverty will not take root in the rocky soil of Appalachia. That’s why the heart of the poverty legislation is local community action, and voluntary participation. There will be no poverty Czars. There will be no giant bureaucracy, but there will be Federal assistance for local plans, worked out and presented by local leaders, and mostly run by the communities they are designed to benefit.

The objective of this program is an all-out war on poverty in the United States. This is a new program, not because no one has tried to help the poor before, but…in the extent of its reliance on local leadership and initiative. The community action program that it proposes calls upon local leadership and local initiative to formulate long-range, comprehensive plans to eliminate poverty in each community. We will review these plans and help finance them. But the initiative to determine and execute plans, to call upon local and state resources and institutions, and to carry the plans forward, depends upon the will and energy of each community.

Method in social change generates feasible, effective solutions

This program is a practical, workable, manageable program. All of it is based on successful programs already tried and tested and proven productive. We did not sit down in Washington and dream up a lot of fancy, theoretical ideas for presentation to congress. We did scour the country and the world searching for practical programs that had proven beneficial. Our idea was to discover ways in which people could be helped to help themselves.

Method in social change addresses deficits and confronts disvalues.

We need to develop neighborhood groups and associations, block clubs and community councils that can mobilize the energies of the poor and support efforts by the poor to help themselves. We need to involve the grass roots leadership of the poor, to develop more leaders, and organizations capable of representing the poor, of speaking out on their behalf, of participating in the planning and administration of community action programs. And—we need those neighborhood leaders to criticize our programs to make sure our programs are getting at the real needs of the poor.

There is no need to romanticize the poor, to pretend that they possess all the wisdom, all the insight, all the perspective on how to eradicate poverty. If that were so we would need no poverty program—the poor could find their own way out. But we cannot assume either that the professionals and the established institutions have a monopoly on knowledge, on ability, on insight. And consequently, it will be necessary, continuously to involve the poor, to utilize their insights, to harness their energies, and to heed their criticism. We all know that process isn’t easy:

• To produce results, but not to take only the easy cases
• To avoid controversy, but not at the price of silencing dissent
• To avoid risk, but yet to innovate
• To involve major institutions, but not to exclude the poor
• To provide services, but not through unilateral action
• To mount new programs, but not without consulting all participants

The law has long been looked upon as the enemy of the poor. It barges into their houses, takes their possessions, sends their kids to reform schools, cuts off their welfare checks, expels them from public or private housing. Any injury the poormsuffer is backing in some way or other by the law by legal authority. And those who hurt the poor usually use a lawyer to do the dirty work for them. Law and lawyers are right smack in the middle of the War on Poverty, and legal services are an essential part of everything we are doing. This is no handout program. There are no giveaways in the War on Poverty. We’re investing in human dignity, not in doles. And we’re investing in legal services as the protector of that dignity, the best defense yet devised against the forces that threaten the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Just last week the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, Senator Stennis, rose on the floor of the Senate and said in effect, that this nation was faced with the choice between guns and butter—that we couldn’t fight both the war in Viet Nam and the war on poverty because we could not afford to divide our strength and resources. Well, speaking from this lowly Sargent’s point of view these are not two wars. There is only one war—the same war—a war for the self determination of peoples, and of individuals. The advocates of the guns or butter theory are fighting the wrong war, in the wrong place, with the wrong weapons against the wrong enemy. Our revolution—the American Revolution—started with the cry: taxation without representation is tyranny. Today, we could expand that slogan—welfare without representation, education, housing, counseling, without a chance to be heard and respected—that is tyranny.

Method in social change generates progressive, cumulative results.

An issue on the mind of America is this: are anti-poverty workers encouraging or joining the riots? Despite what you may have read—the answer is no. These are the facts: in 27 cities, 12,1289 persons are direct employees of OEO funded agencies— neighborhood workers, clerical staff, health aides, community organizers. Most live in or near the ghetto neighborhoods. In these 27 cities, estimated damage to buildings in the ghettos is $273,652,800. OEO rents 491 facilities in these 27 cities. Not one was burned. Not one was looted. The total damage was a few broken plate glass windows.

The processes we set in motion are at least as important as the direct results we achieve; the energies we release are at least as important as the specific production goals we attain; the attitudes we affect, the concerns we generate, the myths we destroy are at least as important as the number of [people we serve], directly or indirectly.

Reflection

As we consider the problem of poverty in America today, it behooves us to take a careful look at Sargent Shriver’s life and legacy—and in particular, the method of social change operative in the War on Poverty. If we better understand how Sargent Shriver did what he did, then we can better understand how to finish the job.

Shriver’s work was at once monumental and practical. He would inspire people young and old to accept responsibility beyond themselves. They would listen to a larger purpose, connecting to a more delicate, universal web of life, and take action to strengthen it. All of his programs respect the dignity of each person; all provide the services and supports that enable people to help themselves; all seek to advance the public good. Shriver’s efforts were fundamentally anti-bureaucratic and entrepreneurial—and where necessary, anti-establishment. He is arguably the most creative public administrator ever to serve the American people. When he faced skepticism, resistance, warnings of too much risk, Shriver pressed on. If he did not like things the way they were, Shriver reinvented them. He broke new ground, went in the opposite direction, turned expectations on their head, and felt free to do so. Every program Shriver created bears evidence of remarkable effort, extraordinary vision, doggedness to find practical solutions, and a commitment to a normative method of peacebuilding and social change.

What is the meaning of Sargent Shriver’s legacy today? How can we achieve in our efforts to end poverty what Sargent Shriver achieved in his?

Jamie Price, Ph.D
Executive Director
Sargent Shriver Peace Institute

Endnotes

- Scott Stossel, Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver, (Washington DC: Smithsonian Books, 2004) pp. 345-354.

- Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972) pp. xi, 4-6.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to students and faculty of Texas Tech, Lubbock, Texas, April 9, 1964. Reprinted in Sargent Shriver, The Point of the Lance, (New York: Harper and Row, 1964) p 6I.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the New Orleans Press Club, September 9, 1964.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the National Association of Broadcasters, Chicago, IL, April 5 1967.

- Sargent Shriver, Address before the House Education and Labor Committee, Washington DC, April 28, 1964.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the Advertising Council, Washington DC, May 5, 1964.

- Sargent Shriver, Address before the House Education and Labor Committee, Washington DC, March 17, 1964.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the Business Council, Hot Springs, VA, May 8, 1964.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the National Urban League, Washington DC, December 9, 1964.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the National Committee for Community Development, Washington DC, March 10. 1965.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the Cincinnati Bar Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 27, 1967.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the Illinois State Bar Association, Chicago, IL, June 16, 1966.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to Dekalb County Educators, Atlanta, Georgia, August 26, 1965.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, Montreat, NC, August 11, 1967.

- Sargent Shriver, Address to the national conference on Social Welfare, Atlantic City, New Jersey, May 26, 1965.


	Biography Photos Speeches Shriver Seminar Spiritualizing Politics 4th Goal Project American Idealist Contact Sargent Shriver and Peace Building The Sargent Shriver Peace Institute (SSPI) is committed to studying, communicating, and advancing the theory and practice of the method in peacebuilding inculcated by Sargent Shriver in the public policies and programs he created during his long, successful career as a public servant. Sargent Shriver created practical, effective public programs that not only meet the needs of people and their communities, but also build peace in the course of meeting those needs. These include the Peace Corps, and the programs of America’s multi-faceted ‘War on Poverty’: Head Start, Community Action, Poverty Law, Job Corps, Vista, Foster Grandparents, among others. In a speech about the Peace Corps delivered at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok on January 28, 1964, Sargent Shriver expressed his fundamental understanding of peacebuilding: Volunteers go overseas not merely as willing and skilled workers, but as representatives, as living examples, of the most powerful idea of all: the idea that free and committed men and women can cross, even transcend, boundaries of culture and language, of alien tradition and great disparities of wealth, of old hostilities and new nationalisms, to meet with other men and women on the common ground of service to human welfare and human dignity. As Sargent Shriver understood and practiced it, individuals and groups “build peace” when they cross boundaries of race, class, culture, politics and religion to reach common agreement on courses of action that advance human dignity and welfare. Understood this way, the primary obstacle to peace is the fragmentation of people and communities that give rise to misunderstanding, to mistrust, to hostility, and in the extreme, to violence. SSPI is committed to advancing the theory and practice of method in peacebuilding in domestic and international contexts. Sargent Shriver and the War on Poverty Method in Social Change This paper analyzes the “method” of social change practiced by Sargent Shriver in leading the War on Poverty in the 1960s, and it invites discussion about the current relevance and value of this legacy in ending 21st Century poverty. Other papers at the Daughter of Charity Health System Conference on Poverty discuss specific policies to change health care and insurance, to enhance after-school programs to bring out the best in kids, and early education programs to stimulate optimum development for poor children. Clearly, we need targeted, feasible and effective responses to all the challenges poverty presents. However, to give direction to our efforts, we must also ask (and answer) a more fundamental set of questions: What do we do when we create the social changes that will end poverty, and how do we know we are on the right path, doing the right thing? Sargent Shriver understood the importance of these questions—perhaps never so viscerally as the day President Johnson tabbed him to lead America’s War on Poverty. On February 1, 1964—barely two months after the assassination of President Kennedy, and the morning after returning from a grueling, three-week trip to Asia as Director of the Peace Corps—Sargent Shriver received a phone call at home from President Johnson. The President informed Shriver that at a press conference that afternoon he would be announcing his appointment as the Director of the War on Poverty. The President went on to say that Shriver would have a budget of $1 billion, and 60 days to conceive, design, administratively structure, and get the program approved by Congress. When Shriver protested, the President responded: “You’ve got the responsibility, you’ve got the authority, you’ve got the power, you’ve got the money. Now, you may not have the glands.” Shriver’s reply: “I’ve got plenty of glands.” In addition to glands, Shriver had a method. On Method The method practiced by Sargent Shriver in formulating and conducting the War on Poverty is analogous to the method practiced by scientists in their diverse fields of inquiry. So understood, “method” is not a recipe, not a technique, not a set of rules, not a magic spell—but “a framework for collaborative creativity”—a framework for creativity that yields progressive and cumulative results. As Sargent Shriver expressed it in a speech he delivered shortly after his appointment: President Johnson declared this a war against poverty in order to mobilize the full will of America. We do not yet know all that needs to be known about the job ahead. We do not know how to go to the moon yet either, but we are going to get there. Fifty years ago, we did not know how to eliminate typhoid fever, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, or paralytic polio. But we found out. Twenty-five years ago, we didn’t know how to split the atom, but we found out. We may not yet know exactly how to go about ending poverty and abolishing war, but we are going to find out. In the natural sciences, “method” involves the careful, collaborative, and recurrent exercise of human intelligence and integrity on the part of scientists—moving them in their quest for explanatory knowledge of the physical world from data to question to hypothesis to testing to conclusion to independent validation. So it is with “method” in social change. In the war against poverty led by Sargent Shriver, “method” involves the careful, collaborative, and recurrent exercise of human intelligence, integrity, and compassion on the part those working for social change—moving them in their quest to reverse the root causes of poverty from encounter with persons, to appreciation and respect for the knowledge, skills and values they represent, to candid confrontation of disvalues and deficits, to an openness to being challenged and changed, to joint decision making, collaborative action, and ongoing revision. There are differences, of course. First, with a focus on the world of nature, natural science aims at discovering empirical knowledge in which value judgments have no constitutive role. As a function of its method, natural science limits itself to questions that can be settled by an appeal to the norms and standards of observation and experiment. In contrast, with a focus on the human world, efforts to end poverty aim at developing policies and programs that are grounded in values and constituted by value judgments. As a function of its method, social change and peacebuilding initiatives open themselves to questions that can be settled only by an appeal to the norms and standards of human flourishing. Second, natural scientists today spend many years acquiring the education and training needed to practice scientific method and to advance their fields of inquiry. In doing so, they ride collectively on the shoulders of the giants who preceded them—especially the giants of the 17th and l 8th centuries that practiced—and in their practice thematized what we now refer to as modem science. In contrast, whereas scientific method has been developed, practiced, refined and applied for over 300 years, the development and formulation of method in peacebuilding and social change is still comparatively young. In the fields of peacebuilding and social change, we are still in an era of the giants—and Sargent Shriver is one of them; he is a Galileo of our time. Method in the War on Poverty In mounting and conducting the War on Poverty, Sargent Shriver and his staff at the Office of Economic Opportunity practiced a method of social change guided by a set of core values. All of the programs developed during this period—Community Action, Job Corps, Head Start, VISTA, and Legal Services, to name but a few—emerged as products of this “framework for collaborative creativity.” Key components of the method are enumerated below, and illustrated in words Sargent Shriver used in speeches he delivered at the time. Method in social change is grounded in an authentic encounter with persons. Only with a profound understanding of the nature of poverty will come answers to the problems of poverty in our communities nationwide. Take a simple word like “poor.” Have we succeeded in making Americans aware of what that means? Have we succeeded in making Americans aware of what it feels like to be without hope…to be without the self-respect of a weekly paycheck…to be without the skills to earn one? Have we shown what it means to a young man when he can’t read an application blank for even a menial job? Have we translated to our fellow Americans how a mother feels when she can’t do arithmetic well enough to help her seven-year-old son with his homework? The plain answer is that we have not. And many of us do not want to. If public relations means putting one’s best foot forward, the War on Poverty is the precise opposite. We are constantly revealing this Nation’s worst foot. We are forcing it into the public consciousness, calling attention to the fact that it is ugly, clumsy and clubbed. If public relations means a balm that soothes us by smelling sweet and covering blemishes, the War on Poverty is an itching powder that keeps us scratching at the sores of our society. If public relations means shaping ideas to make them acceptable to diverse groups, the War on Poverty is just the opposite. We are trying to reshape the groups to conform to the idea—the central concept—that if the poor are to be helped out of poverty they must do it themselves on their own terms, not on ours. Method in social change is guided by respect for the knowledge, skills and values of the people it serves, and seeks “maximum feasible participation.” The best way for the Federal Government to mount a broad attack on poverty at the community level is to support and stimulate community initiative and leadership. Poverty has as many different faces as the different places where it is found. What will work in Cleveland may not work in Los Angeles, and a program Chicago might use to fight urban poverty will not take root in the rocky soil of Appalachia. That’s why the heart of the poverty legislation is local community action, and voluntary participation. There will be no poverty Czars. There will be no giant bureaucracy, but there will be Federal assistance for local plans, worked out and presented by local leaders, and mostly run by the communities they are designed to benefit. The objective of this program is an all-out war on poverty in the United States. This is a new program, not because no one has tried to help the poor before, but…in the extent of its reliance on local leadership and initiative. The community action program that it proposes calls upon local leadership and local initiative to formulate long-range, comprehensive plans to eliminate poverty in each community. We will review these plans and help finance them. But the initiative to determine and execute plans, to call upon local and state resources and institutions, and to carry the plans forward, depends upon the will and energy of each community. Method in social change generates feasible, effective solutions This program is a practical, workable, manageable program. All of it is based on successful programs already tried and tested and proven productive. We did not sit down in Washington and dream up a lot of fancy, theoretical ideas for presentation to congress. We did scour the country and the world searching for practical programs that had proven beneficial. Our idea was to discover ways in which people could be helped to help themselves. Method in social change addresses deficits and confronts disvalues. We need to develop neighborhood groups and associations, block clubs and community councils that can mobilize the energies of the poor and support efforts by the poor to help themselves. We need to involve the grass roots leadership of the poor, to develop more leaders, and organizations capable of representing the poor, of speaking out on their behalf, of participating in the planning and administration of community action programs. And—we need those neighborhood leaders to criticize our programs to make sure our programs are getting at the real needs of the poor. There is no need to romanticize the poor, to pretend that they possess all the wisdom, all the insight, all the perspective on how to eradicate poverty. If that were so we would need no poverty program—the poor could find their own way out. But we cannot assume either that the professionals and the established institutions have a monopoly on knowledge, on ability, on insight. And consequently, it will be necessary, continuously to involve the poor, to utilize their insights, to harness their energies, and to heed their criticism. We all know that process isn’t easy: • To produce results, but not to take only the easy cases • To avoid controversy, but not at the price of silencing dissent • To avoid risk, but yet to innovate • To involve major institutions, but not to exclude the poor • To provide services, but not through unilateral action • To mount new programs, but not without consulting all participants The law has long been looked upon as the enemy of the poor. It barges into their houses, takes their possessions, sends their kids to reform schools, cuts off their welfare checks, expels them from public or private housing. Any injury the poormsuffer is backing in some way or other by the law by legal authority. And those who hurt the poor usually use a lawyer to do the dirty work for them. Law and lawyers are right smack in the middle of the War on Poverty, and legal services are an essential part of everything we are doing. This is no handout program. There are no giveaways in the War on Poverty. We’re investing in human dignity, not in doles. And we’re investing in legal services as the protector of that dignity, the best defense yet devised against the forces that threaten the inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Just last week the distinguished Senator from Mississippi, Senator Stennis, rose on the floor of the Senate and said in effect, that this nation was faced with the choice between guns and butter—that we couldn’t fight both the war in Viet Nam and the war on poverty because we could not afford to divide our strength and resources. Well, speaking from this lowly Sargent’s point of view these are not two wars. There is only one war—the same war—a war for the self determination of peoples, and of individuals. The advocates of the guns or butter theory are fighting the wrong war, in the wrong place, with the wrong weapons against the wrong enemy. Our revolution—the American Revolution—started with the cry: taxation without representation is tyranny. Today, we could expand that slogan—welfare without representation, education, housing, counseling, without a chance to be heard and respected—that is tyranny. Method in social change generates progressive, cumulative results. An issue on the mind of America is this: are anti-poverty workers encouraging or joining the riots? Despite what you may have read—the answer is no. These are the facts: in 27 cities, 12,1289 persons are direct employees of OEO funded agencies— neighborhood workers, clerical staff, health aides, community organizers. Most live in or near the ghetto neighborhoods. In these 27 cities, estimated damage to buildings in the ghettos is $273,652,800. OEO rents 491 facilities in these 27 cities. Not one was burned. Not one was looted. The total damage was a few broken plate glass windows. The processes we set in motion are at least as important as the direct results we achieve; the energies we release are at least as important as the specific production goals we attain; the attitudes we affect, the concerns we generate, the myths we destroy are at least as important as the number of [people we serve], directly or indirectly. Reflection As we consider the problem of poverty in America today, it behooves us to take a careful look at Sargent Shriver’s life and legacy—and in particular, the method of social change operative in the War on Poverty. If we better understand how Sargent Shriver did what he did, then we can better understand how to finish the job. Shriver’s work was at once monumental and practical. He would inspire people young and old to accept responsibility beyond themselves. They would listen to a larger purpose, connecting to a more delicate, universal web of life, and take action to strengthen it. All of his programs respect the dignity of each person; all provide the services and supports that enable people to help themselves; all seek to advance the public good. Shriver’s efforts were fundamentally anti-bureaucratic and entrepreneurial—and where necessary, anti-establishment. He is arguably the most creative public administrator ever to serve the American people. When he faced skepticism, resistance, warnings of too much risk, Shriver pressed on. If he did not like things the way they were, Shriver reinvented them. He broke new ground, went in the opposite direction, turned expectations on their head, and felt free to do so. Every program Shriver created bears evidence of remarkable effort, extraordinary vision, doggedness to find practical solutions, and a commitment to a normative method of peacebuilding and social change. What is the meaning of Sargent Shriver’s legacy today? How can we achieve in our efforts to end poverty what Sargent Shriver achieved in his? Jamie Price, Ph.D Executive Director Sargent Shriver Peace Institute Endnotes - Scott Stossel, Sarge: The Life and Times of Sargent Shriver, (Washington DC: Smithsonian Books, 2004) pp. 345-354. - Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology, (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972) pp. xi, 4-6. - Sargent Shriver, Address to students and faculty of Texas Tech, Lubbock, Texas, April 9, 1964. Reprinted in Sargent Shriver, The Point of the Lance, (New York: Harper and Row, 1964) p 6I. `- Sargent Shriver, Address to the New Orleans Press Club, September 9, 1964.` - Sargent Shriver, Address to the National Association of Broadcasters, Chicago, IL, April 5 1967. - Sargent Shriver, Address before the House Education and Labor Committee, Washington DC, April 28, 1964. `- Sargent Shriver, Address to the Advertising Council, Washington DC, May 5, 1964.` `- Sargent Shriver, Address before the House Education and Labor Committee, Washington DC, March 17, 1964.` - Sargent Shriver, Address to the Business Council, Hot Springs, VA, May 8, 1964. - Sargent Shriver, Address to the National Urban League, Washington DC, December 9, 1964. - Sargent Shriver, Address to the National Committee for Community Development, Washington DC, March 10. 1965. - Sargent Shriver, Address to the Cincinnati Bar Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 27, 1967. - Sargent Shriver, Address to the Illinois State Bar Association, Chicago, IL, June 16, 1966. - Sargent Shriver, Address to Dekalb County Educators, Atlanta, Georgia, August 26, 1965. - Sargent Shriver, Address to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, Montreat, NC, August 11, 1967. - Sargent Shriver, Address to the national conference on Social Welfare, Atlantic City, New Jersey, May 26, 1965.