The American Spectator : Young Americans, Old Freedoms

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Young Americans, Old Freedoms

By Quin Hillyer on 9.10.10 @ 6:08AM

The Sharon Conference, revisited, as Young Americans for Freedom turns 50.

A few hundred conservative activists will be gathering at the Mayflower hotel in Washington D.C. today and tomorrow to celebrate one of the seminal events of the conservative movement, which happened 50 years ago on these same two days of the calendar. "A Tribute to Sharon: Celebrating 50 Years of Advancing Liberty" will commemorate the founding of Young Americans for Freedom and the adoption of what for 50 years has stood as the single best compendium of American conservative movement beliefs -- the Sharon Statement.

If you read the statement itself, you'll immediately grasp its eloquence and the importance of its timeless values. The statement, and the conference, deserve a column-cum-virtual-advertisement all their own, which will follow this paragraph. But there's a wonderful back story, too, so please stay tuned for later paragraphs even if the conference itself doesn't interest you (although it ought to do so).

For some reason, I'm one of the 12 speakers, although out of place in the midst of a list of conservative movement supermen that includes political analyst extraordinaire Michael Barone; former congressmen Barry Goldwater Jr., Robert Bauman and Jim Kolbe; historian Lee Edwards; former Reagan Administration officials and conservative stalwarts Don Devine and Wayne Thorburn; direct mail guru and conservative movement leader Richard Viguerie; and American Spectator publisher Al Regnery. And the keynote address for the Friday banquet will be federal appeals court judge and former U.S. Sen. James Buckley -- at whose family estate, Great Elm in Sharon, Conn., YAF and the Statement were launched under the tutelage of brother William F. Buckley. Sponsored by the Young Americas Foundation and the Fund for American Studies, this weekend's conference will look back at Sharon and forward to the "future of freedom."

It's the look back that is of this column's immediate interest. There was a time when Young Americans for Freedom was the cutting edge of the conservative movement, the training ground for rising conservative leaders, and the most prominent and effective voice in countering the student radicals of the 1960s. (Thorburn has written a book about it all, which finally gives due credit to the organization. Do read it.) And it all started in Sharon on Sept. 10-11, 1960. My father, who passed away earlier this year, was there. I found in his files all his original YAF documents.

Imagine you are a conservative activist on a decidedly liberal campus down south. You receive a letter dated August 16, 1960, from recent Georgetown graduate Douglas Caddy and the "Interim Committee for a National Conservative Youth Organization" (the committee included Suzanne Regnery of the conservative publishing family, and Kolbe, later a congressman, and 10 other worthies). "America stands at the crossroads today," the letter opened. "Will our nation continue to follow the path towards socialism or will we turn towards Conservatism and freedom? The final answer to this question lies with America's youth…. An intercollegiate society for Conservative youth has been in operation for several years… in bringing about a Conservative intellectual revival on the campus. Many feel that now is the time to organize a complementary nationwide youth movement which would be designed almost solely for political action -- implementing and coordinating the aspirations of Conservative youth into a dynamic and effective political force."

Sounds like old hat, right? Not back then. Nothing like this existed at the time. This was new. It was ground-breaking. Which is why the letter, presciently, went on: "The Sharon Conference can be of historic importance…. We hope you will agree with us on its importance and urge you to make your plans today to attend."

Only 120 people were invited. According to the list I have, only 86 attended. In addition to Dad, they included the aforementioned Jim Kolbe and Lee Edwards; path-breaking conservative journalist M. Stanton Evans; future Conservative Caucus president Howard Phillips; Philadelphia Society founder Don Lipsett; future Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page editor and Pulitzer Prize finalist Ross Mackenzie; future federal appeals court judge Paul Niemeyer; National Review publisher William Rusher as an observer (who joked that because he was too old for YAF that made him an Old American for Freedom, or OAF); future American Conservative Union leader Carol Dawson; and future Human Events Editor Allan Ryskind -- among others who became major leaders in their fields.

In addition to adopting the Sharon Statement, those assembled had to choose a name. My dad recalls identifying several proposals as already being the names of "Communist front organizations" (he had recently made a study of the topic), which is why those names were nixed in favor of YAF. They adopted bylaws for the national organization. They had cocktails and played tennis. They had panel discussions. They watched films produced by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. They listened to remarks by WFB. They elected officers. Dad's notes from the break-out sessions record the repeated idea to "infiltrate existing organizations," which doubtless didn't have quite the cloak-and-dagger connotations then that it has today -- it seems to have meant not only getting involved in conservative groups but also bringing a conservative perspective to any group one joins -- but does in retrospect sound somewhat romantic. "Don't use labels," he wrote. "Start off talking about policies. Labels frighten; policies bring agreement." And "emphasize that conservatism is non-conformist" -- counterintuitive, but oh so true, and also a good sales point for college students who typically like to think of themselves as non-conformists even as they actually conform their thoughts, actions, and clothing to the reigning liberal orthodoxy.

WFB devoted a full column to YAF in the first subsequent issue of National Review: "A new organization was born last week and just possibly it will influence the political future of this country. … Ten years ago the struggle seemed so long, so endless, even, that we did not even dream of victory. Even now the world continues to go left, but all over the land dumbfounded professors are remarking the extraordinary revival of hard conservative sentiments in the student bodies…. It may be that, as Russell Kirk keeps reminding us, the Struggle Availeth. No one would doubt it who talked to the founding fathers of the Young Americans for Freedom."

By the spring of 1961, YAF's national board of directors included another future appeals court judge, Diarmuid O'Scannlein, and boasted a national advisory board full of congressmen, leading thinkers, and writers such as John Dos Passos, academic deans, admirals and generals, and noted business leaders.

Back before the Internet and instant messaging, was there ever any other such a successful launch of a political organization for young people?

FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH, I lucked out when I got around to YAF at Georgetown in 1982. A guy named Richard Mathias had re-founded the group there that somehow had foundered since the time when Georgetown grad Douglas Caddy was the national organization's first executive director. Mostly through Mathias's work (and sometimes with financial support from Ron Robinson's Young America's Foundation), we sponsored a dazzling array of speakers that included George Will (oddly enough pushing an agenda at the time that was "more Lincolnesque" and "less Madisonian"), Morton Blackwell, rising star Lee Atwater, several Reagan Cabinet secretaries, U.S. Rep. Bob Livingston, Angelo Codevilla, Lyn Nofziger, Stan Evans, and economics professor and columnist Walter Williams. Three of our student board members became frequent writers for conservative publications: In addition to me, there were now-nationally syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock and Virginia politics professor/AEI scholar Gerard Alexander, who has written numerous pieces for the Claremont Review of Books and the Weekly Standard. The Washington Post sent a reporter to watch the anti-nuke ABC special The Day After with us and write about our reactions; and later the Post did a two-page profile of Murdock. (Hillyer and Murdock are second and third from the right in the photo below, crowding a patient George Will.)

Other YAF chapters across the country well into the 1980s, at least, were still experiencing similar success. The national YAF magazine New Guard was an amazingly fine publication. Murdock wrote for it. So did now-famous author Dinesh D'Souza, and Michelle Easton, who later founded the Clare Booth Luce Institute. So did Doug Bandow, who frequently writes for these pages. And Michael Boos, now vice president and general counsel for Citizens United (of campaign speech rights fame).

And now, in 2010, YAF is enjoying a bit of a resurgence under executive director Jordan Marks. It is a resurgence that should only strengthen with the attention brought by this weekend's conference. Which is all to the good, because it is again the case, as it was at Sharon, that "in this time of moral and political crisis, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths. We, as young conservatives, believe: That foremost among the transcendent values is the individual's use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary force; that liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom;… [and] that American foreign policy must be judged by this criterion: does it serve the just interests of the United States?"

And what of today's youth? They, too, are re-embracing freedom. Polls show that young voters are now turning against Barack Obama. Freedom does have a future. And Americans, young and old, will lead it.

About the Author

Quin Hillyer is a senior editor of The American Spectator and a senior fellow at the Center for Individual Freedom.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (31) | Leave a comment

John Suarez| 9.10.10 @ 8:59AM

Wish I could be joining my fellow YAFers today and tomorrow, although I recently became an OAF, to recall great times struggling for freedom and civilization. Growing up watching Firing Line on Sundays and discovering the William F. Buckley Jr.'s National Review when great conservatives such as James Burnham, Paul Weyrich & Russell Kirk were to be found within its pages!

Then to discover when I was told by liberal republicans that I was too conservative for the Republican Party that there were like minded brothers and sisters in Young Americans for Freedom.

I'll be thinking of this event today and tomorrow. I hope it appears on C-span.

My prayers and best wishes,

John Suarez
FIU YAF' 1992
Miami, FL

Alan Brooks| 9.10.10 @ 5:31PM

A half century, but the skool system is an embarassment. What good is sponsoring conservative mutual admiration societies if college is what high school used to be, and high school is now grammar school?

Quartermaster| 9.10.10 @ 7:16PM

Hi Skool is Grammar School? Methinks you give far too much credit to the Skools of the modern era.

As for colleges,, it depends on your major. Some majors require you actually know a lot about the truth rather than those fake majors like Womyn's and Black Studies.

Alan Brooks| 9.10.10 @ 9:37PM

And French Lesbian Tap Dancing electives.
IMO, though conservatives giving awards to each other is similar to show biz giving baubles to their kind, such as Emmys and Grammys. If NR awards Rich Lowry the WFB Award For Excellence In Publishing, an outside observer might think the award is a trinket given from one hand to the other.
As with Michael Jackson getting awards: the music industry was giving itself awards in his name.

John Suarez| 9.11.10 @ 3:23AM

No arguments with above observations. Things have gotten worse over the past 50 years but to remember and celebrate a movement that sought and still seeks to resist these forces is worthwhile to the degree that it attracts and develops new activists to carry on the torch.

Alan Brooksd| 9.11.10 @ 7:47PM

Fine. But to proceed with a hierarchical 'society' (the maddening crowd plus the upper crust) those on top of the food chain have to be-- pardon the mixed metaphor-- the cream of the crop, otherwise the social contract means little (or nothing). Since 1/20/'89 such has not been the case. It will be 22 years next January, which means everyone born when Reagan left office is now fully grown up;-- well, one would hope so!

Jim Logue| 9.13.10 @ 11:26PM

John, those were the good old days. You missed a good time. Hope to see you and the other old yafers from our days around sometime soon again.

KyMouse| 9.10.10 @ 9:22AM

I was in YAF when I was in high school, circa 1970. It wasn't easy, what with Kent State and other events inspiring the young Lefties all around me, but I managed to start a teensy "chapter" with a few conservative classmates. We were not overly popular, as a result, but we did what we could to get our peers to start thinking for themselves.

Now that I've read this fine article, I'll see if I can find my old "Up against the wall, Commies" button.

Interested Conservative| 9.10.10 @ 9:44AM

Does George Will age?

coal carrier| 9.10.10 @ 10:01AM

No. He's too conservative.

Quartermaster| 9.10.10 @ 7:18PM

The man is an elitist, not a conservative. He has drifted a lot over the last 30 years.

JimH| 9.10.10 @ 11:13AM

With the one obvious exception they do look a bit like Niedermeyer's fraternity brothers.

RCV| 9.10.10 @ 12:06PM

"Killed in Vietnam, by his own troops."

The One We've Been Waiting For| 9.10.10 @ 1:04PM

We're buying shrimp, RCV. I don't appreciate this and will report to the secret service. The idea of shooting your commander is not something I want to bring up right now. This is what I pay these trolls for? Well it isn't my money really. Three days of golf this weekend. I never tire ... We're allowing imported prescription drugs baby.

Al Adab| 9.10.10 @ 11:22AM

YAF, through its principled Sharon Statement, was a major if often overlooked force in creating the Conservative majorities of 1980 and 1994. That the GOP failed to understaqnd that it was only Conservatives who brought them victory is another issue. Happy birthday to YAF and may this year serve to reinvigorate the Movement and the role YAF plays as we move toward Nov.

SeattleBruce| 9.11.10 @ 11:34PM

"YAF, through its principled Sharon Statement, was a major if often overlooked force in creating the Conservative majorities of 1980 and 1994. "

Every legitimate movement needs philisophical and moral underpinnings to draw legitimacy and motivation from. Conservatives owe a debt to our forebears of Freedom's torch, whether from 1960 or 1776.

Feralcat| 9.10.10 @ 5:49PM

Apparently a leading international Islamic body has called for outlawing the Koran.

“(CNSNews.com) – Following the uproar over the threatened burning of the Quran by a small Florida church, a leading international Islamic body said Thursday that the United Nations should outlaw “all forms of offense against religions.””

If “all forms of offense against religions.” were outlawed, then the Koran would be outlawed as it is absolutely permeated with all manner of offenses, and worse, against Jews and Christians and others.

SeattleBruce| 9.11.10 @ 11:36PM

"If “all forms of offense against religions.” were outlawed, then the Koran would be outlawed as it is absolutely permeated with all manner of offenses, and worse, against Jews and Christians and others."

They snookered themselves with that one, didn't they?

Tenn Slim| 9.11.10 @ 9:47AM

"And what of today's youth? They, too, are re-embracing freedom. Polls show that young voters are now turning against Barack Obama. Freedom does have a future. And Americans, young and old, will lead it."
Vermont, the most Socialistic state in the US, has an entire HS generation that meets the above critieria. Able, Knowledgeable, well read, individualistic, realistic, able to observe the Socialistic results first hand, this HS Generation may well be the USA Electorates last and final hope.
We will do well to nurture the Conservative Young. The Flag Bearers of the Future, for sure.
end
Semper Fi

Margie| 9.12.10 @ 6:40PM

From your mouth to God's ears The Conservative Young are precious in His sight. Like "apples of gold in settings of silver." Prov. 29:11.

vatvince37| 9.11.10 @ 2:59PM

So this is what the "conservative" movement comes down to: "conservative movement supermen" that include Robert Bauman and Jim Koble. What hath God wrought!
Signor Quillyer knows, or should, that the latter of these two "supermen" was a tireless promotor of amnesty toward illegal aliens, and this from a congressman from Arizona, no less. My organization, which seeks to educate the public and lawmakers about the dangers posed by illegal aliens, tried to deal with Mr. Kolbe's office staff, and they were not, to put it mildly, very interested in hearing what illegal aliens were doing to Arizona. Neither were the folks in Sen. McCain's office. Further, this "conservative superman" was as pro-abortion as any liberal Democrat. If memory serves, he voted against the bill to outlaw "partial birth abortion." Oh! and yes, there was his outing (pardon the pun) with two aides in which there was talk of his "touching them inappropriately." They sure don't make conservative supermen the way they used to.
I shan't even bother to discuss Herr Bauman, for I would have to repeat myself.
Finally, I do hope that this nostalgic YAF reunion does not end up as the last several CPAC Conferences I've attended: filled with conservative sound and fury ...signifying nothing.

Robert M. Engstrom| 9.11.10 @ 7:55PM

I was well into my 50s when I had the privilege of becoming an intern in the YAF's National Journalism Center.
Sadly, I was unable attend the 50th anniversary event, but I give full credit to the YAF and NJC for reinvigorating my journalism career.
I encourage all to urge their young conservatives to join the organization and get into the fray. It is a battle worth fighting.
Robert M. Engstrom, NJC intern 2009

vik| 9.12.10 @ 2:00AM

There are inherent contradictions existing in and weakening the conservative movement which can only be resolved with sound philosophical reasoning

http://www.theobjectivestandar.....vatism.asp

Ralph Novy| 9.12.10 @ 10:35AM

Have to lead off with "LOL." No -- better yet -- LMAO.

"..;. conservative movement supermen that includes..."

I can just see this congregation of "supermen" at.......where?.........Denny's?....... George Webb's?.......Wimpy Burger?

The mind/imagination boggles.

The climax of this "dramatic" meeting? Fat, balding white guys stabbing each other in the eyes over their share of the check?

Precious.

No......."Priceless."

Margie| 9.12.10 @ 6:37PM

Actually what I think is priceless is how you Lefties never seem to get tired of twisting in the wind.

Occam's Tool| 9.12.10 @ 9:27PM

When I was in YAF at TCU in the 80s, the enemy was totalitarianism without G-d. Now it is totalitarianism in the name of G-d. Same essential enemy, same solution. Where is our Reagan?

Margie| 9.12.10 @ 10:34PM

Warm greetings to you this eve, Mr OT. Maybe our Reagan is Sarah Palin. She's about as Reaganesque as you can get. She is truly inspired, and inspires others like he did. She sees like he saw, and she understands what conservatism is. I wasn't paying attention to anything political in the 80's so I missed out, but from everything I've read and heard about Ronald Reagan~ she embodies it.

wayne thorburn| 9.12.10 @ 7:08PM

Thanks Quin for an excellent article. There are thousands out there whose dedication to conservative principles led them to YAF which, in turn, trained and educated them in both political philosophy and leadership development. Clearly it has made a difference in American society but there is obviously much more to be done to ensure individual freedom and return to limited government.

Chris Yoder| 9.13.10 @ 12:33AM

Still have all my old New Guards. (Plus 45 years of Human Events and assorted Battlelines).. Egad, I really need to learn to let loose.

Cathy Lyders| 3.8.11 @ 5:01PM

Dear Chris,

I am doing a paper on student activism at the University of Arizona in the sixties and I notice that you were head of YAF at the UofA in 1969. One of the primary focuses of the paper is what John Andrew has called "the other side of the sixties," activism among young conservatives students. I would love any insights you might have about YAF at the UofA in the late sixties, early seventies.

Thanks for any help you might be able to give,
Cathy Lyders