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Special Report
Walking to America
A Fourth of July remembrance of one boy’s journey to the land of his dreams.
(Page 3 of 4)
In 1971, Sam Goldwyn was awarded the Medal of Freedom by the President of the United States.
Tomorrow will be the 236th Fourth of July since the first in 1776. It will be the 223rd Fourth of July since the United States was formed under the Constitution in 1789.
The appalling decision on Obamacare not withstanding, millions of Americans still understand in their bones not only what America was meant to be — but what it can be again.
In 1979, my former boss, the late Jack Kemp, wrote a book called An American Renaissance: A Strategy for the 1980’s. Billed at the time by his publisher as Kemp’s “plan for a return to prosperity,” Kemp quoted from his friend the writer and free-market champion George Gilder. Gilder had summed it up this way in a prescient article for Harper’s in 1978 entitled “Prometheus Bound.” Remember that in 1978 the Jimmy Carter presidency was already marking its depressing mid-point that would set the stage for Ronald Reagan and a rebirth of the American spirit. Neither Kemp nor Gilder, of course, could foresee the election of Reagan and what was to come. But without doubt both men knew their country well, and Gilder’s words as cited back in 1979 are worth recalling this Fourth of July in 2012 in the Age of Obama. Wrote Gilder as quoted by Kemp:
“The most dire and fatal hubris for any leader is to cut his people off from providence, from the miraculous prodigality of chance, by substituting a closed system of human planning. Innovation is always unpredictable, and thus an effect of faith and freedom.
“In the United States today we are facing the usual calculus of impossibility, recited by the familiar aspirants to a master plan. It is said we must abandon economic freedom because our frontier is closed: because our biosphere is strained, because our resources are running out, because our technology is perverse, because our population is dense, because our horizons are closing in. We walk, it is said, in a shadow of death, depleted air, poisoned earth and water, a fallout of explosive growth showering from the clouds of our future in a quiet carcinogenic rain. In this extremity, we cannot afford the luxuries of competition and waste and freedom. We have reached the end of the open road; we are beating against the gates of an occluded frontier. We must tax and regulate and plan, redistribute our wealth and ration our consumption, because we have reached the end of openness.
“But quite to the contrary, these problems and crises are in themselves the new frontier, are themselves the mandate for individual and corporate competition and creativity, are themselves the reason why we cannot afford the consolations of planning and stasis.
“…To many people, the past seems inevitable and the future impossible. History is seen to have arisen not from unpredictable flows of genius and heroism, but more or less inevitably, from preordained patterns of natural resources and population. For those who doubt the decisive role of genius, courage, and chance in history, the future always appears impossible; they can see no way for free nations to escape a fate of decline, decay, and coercion, as their growing populations press against a closing frontier.”
Jack Kemp picked it up from there, closing by saying:
The truth is, no frontier need be closed for long. Yes, the rich, bountiful earth is limited in what it can provide, but there are no natural bounds to the human spirit and its accomplishments, except insofar as we are cramped by human timidity and fear or by human institutions. In the 1980’s, the first decade of the American renaissance, these are the bounds we must pit ourselves against, so it can be said of our nation in our time, “To her, and to her especially, belongs the future.”
Jack Kemp and George Gilder presumably never met Sam Goldwyn, who died a wealthy, fabulously successful old man in 1974. At the age of 95.
But both men — and Kemp’s plan was the basis for the success of “Reaganomics” that produced 21 million jobs in the Reagan-era — surely would have understood the boy Schmuel Gelbfisz had they met him when the sixteen year-old began walking…walking…walking.
Walking out of a past filled with poverty and religious persecution. Walking literally step-by-step-by-step to a dazzling future that would bring a renaissance to his own life — and through his life’s work in movies, wonderfully warm memories to millions. Not to mention jobs to all the thousands of people who made those movies.
Schmuel Gelbfisz was walking because without ever having read the Declaration of Independence he knew — he knew — that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
So Schmuel Gelbfisz would walk to that place.
About the Author
Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author. He writes from Pennsylvania at jlpa1@aol.com.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (16) | Leave a comment
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SCMike| 7.3.12 @ 7:09AM
Fitting and timely.
Thank you.
TLP| 7.3.12 @ 8:13AM
Big Deal.
We have Jewish Movie Moguls too, ya know. They're all Liberals, now, and they make lots of Movies about America.
How it Sucks. How it's Racist, and Evil, and Greedy, and Exploiting the rest of the world to pay for all of the Golden Toilet Seats that ONLY Rich Republicans sit on.
They make Movies of America's Armed Forces RAPING little Girls in Vietnam, and Murdering Innocent Civilians in the dead of night, in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Syriana. In the Valley of Eli. Jarhead. Full Metal Jacket. Platoon. The list is ENDLESS.
George Clooney. Mark Wahlberg. William DeVoe. Ben Affleck. Tommy Lee Jones. Not a Veteran in the bunch. There never is.
Everything is a Conspiracy, with the U.S. in the lead.
Ever Businessman is a Thieving, Lying, Crook, who washes his Lamborghini with the Tears from his exploited sweat shop workers. Every Democrat is Captain America, to the Republicans Red Skull, and it's THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA, that we owe all of our Freedoms, and Liberties to, for putting out THE TRUTH. (as they define it)
THE END.
That's why we join the Services.
So these Ccksckrs can tee off on us whenever they get the urge.
What a Country.
Moe Blotz| 7.3.12 @ 8:25AM
Happy Independence Day to you, Mr. Lord, and to all curmudgeons, trolls, Patriots, wingers (left and right); Americans all. We celebrate the birth of this country where we can freely express our opinions and disagree. How boring indeed if everybody thought the same way. Value your Liberty, for Liberty lost is lost forever.
Slacker| 7.3.12 @ 2:46PM
The tyrannical shit bags who rule my city outlawed all fireworks, even sparklers. Square that with your imaginary liberty.
Moe Blotz| 7.3.12 @ 8:10PM
Your moniker, Slacker, says more about you and your mind set than any retort with which I could respond.
Butch| 7.4.12 @ 5:47PM
Your city is late to the Agenda 21 party, Slacker. Probably used "fire safety" as an excuse. So your block party/cookout couldn't shoot off fireworks for your kids, but I'll bet you city provided you with a genuine "public" fireworks show where you could fight for a parking place and rub elbows with all the stoners, drunks, Crips, Bloods, homeless beggers, pickpockets, purse snatchers, wedgie-show-ers, f-word-right-in-front-of-children-sayers, and other assorted "patriots."
People still shoot 'em off in my city, it's hard to police, but its getting harder and harder. Needless to say, the neighbors who don't get invited to the cookout because they are the same types who make sure all the smokers are made to cease have started to call the cops on you using the special 311 number the city established--and uses your tax dollars to promote via media, extensively. After all, someone, somewhere out there just might be celebrating, and having a good time. We can't have that.
Ken (Old Texican)| 7.3.12 @ 9:36AM
Jeffrey,
thank you.
Nancy in NC| 7.3.12 @ 10:01AM
Thanks for an uplifting story that reminds of all of what we are on the verge of losing.
I have had several occasions of meeting people who have come here from Russia, Cuba, and other despotic places, and they are sick about what is happening here, as they have seen it all before. Too bad that so many Americans are so lazy and complacent they have no idea of what they are about to lose...the opportunity to pursue your dream, regardless of your background. Now only the elite need apply.
Who Knows?| 7.3.12 @ 11:13AM
What a mensch! What a different time.
Further proof that conventional wisdom is usually not just wrong, but egregiously so, is provided by the whole debate about immigration. It seems like this war of ideas, of “reform”, has been going on forever---and, indeed, I posit that it is perhaps a seminal either-or.
With some 300,000,000 Americans, pols must pander to voters to win. Thus, the “America First” types focus on what they perceive to be the good of the country, not the people like Sam Goldwyn, the eager immigrants.
Whereas, in truth, the REAL America needs the immigrants, more than the immigrants need America. But, that is not popular, since the majority of voters like their own “piece of the freedom pie”, and don’t want any competition.
Of course, there are many ways to be an immigrant.
As the world, hopefully, continues to solve the survival equations, so that everyone can at least not starve to death, there will always be those “open fields” that Lincoln wrote about. That means humans CAN have the opportunity to “immigrate” to different “lands”, even when seemingly staying in place.
It’s not as Peggy Lee sang, “Is that all there is?”
No, one is always Truly free to “immigrate” in Consciousness, by freeing attention to observe, understand, and Transcend WHATEVER seems to arise.
Even now.
Albert Constantine Jr.| 7.3.12 @ 12:11PM
Once people walked or otherwise came here to be free and have opportunity. Today, too many come here for “Free benefits” such as food stamps, medical care and public education.
EyeOnFreedom | 7.3.12 @ 2:25PM
Extraordinary piece! Very well done!
Johnimo| 7.3.12 @ 10:56PM
Thank you Jeffrey, for an inspirational story about a great man who was "American" long before his arrival in North America. I recently heard a memorable quote: "Everything you want is just beyond your fear." What a shame that so many choose security rather than their dreams.
Maxwell| 7.4.12 @ 9:03AM
I know today is July 4th and most people will not be reading The Spectator but I will add a few words. This past Monday Princeton held its fireworks celebration. As always it is very well attended. To avoid the crowd and the traffic jam that follows the conclusion of the display Lori & I sat in the parking lot on the tail gate of my pick up truck.
While the fireworks display was a wonderful celebration a few events stick in my mind. First, when the announcement to stand for The National Anthem was made a man about my age got out of his mini van, took off his baseball hat and stood at attention. Second, I think of my father who served in WW1 in a Mounted Artillery battery and our family's only grand daughter who served in Iraq and was killed by an IED.
So, you may ask, Maxwell, why the post? Because what will stand out in my mind the most is a parent letting his kid 'take a dump' in the parking lot. They were not American, from South of the Border, Oriental, or from a poor European country. I hope this is not where we are heading as a great country.
Finzi Holst| 7.4.12 @ 2:39PM
Dear Maxwell-
Place a Constitution on the ground and you would have what the Obama Administration does to this country every day.
Sorry about your granddaughter. But I am grateful for her service -- and her courage.
Best,
FH
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." -- C. S. Lewis
TLP| 7.4.12 @ 4:32PM
You drove your PICKUP TRUCK to the 4th of July Fireworks with your WIFE?
You're from a MILITARY FAMILY?
And, you watched the Fireworks from the TAILGATE OF YOUR TRUCK?
You, my friend, are at the Top of Bull Dyke Napolatano's Terrorist Watch List.
God help you, if you have a Gun Rack, Fly the Flag, and go to CHURCH on Sundays.
God help us all.
Bob K| 7.4.12 @ 6:20PM
Thanks for this inspiring article, Mr. Lord.
I'm e-mailing it to my sons.