[What are the aims, the experiences, and the perplexities of the Post-War Generation? The ATLANTIC intends to find out. In this and successive issues, space will be reserved for the best letters written by those under thirty — letters that speak vigorously, honestly, and with free rein. Some letters we shall invite, others will come to us unsolicited; we want to hear from men and women, from those with degrees and those without, from all walks of life. Writers should bear in mind two qualifications: first, they must be under thirty; secondly, each letter should, if possible, be compassed within 650 words. Contributions are invited, and those published will of course be paid for. Under special circumstances, anonymity will be preserved, although it is our preference that the letters be signed. — THE EDITOR]

THE RIFT BETWEEN THE GENERATIONS

New Haven, Connecticut
To the Editor of the Atlantic: —
In suggesting that I write about the rift between the generations, you hit on something of great interest to me. As a member of the rising younger generation, who hears on all sides about the so-called ‘Revolt of Youth,’ I have often wondered about this rift which Sinclair Lewis and others find so prominent in American society.
I speak only from a limited experience, but it is my belief that the gap between the generations has been greatly exaggerated. Pure calendar age, unless it has meant an absolute hardening of outlook, is an unimportant differentiating factor in this rapidly changing world compared with general enlightenment. Progressive youth and progressive age are often far closer together than progressive and backward youth.
Yet one must account somehow for the widespread belief in this rift. And one of the chief causes for the apparent gap must certainly be the change in methods and subjects of education, which has tended to throw school and college education into apparent opposition to the education acquired in the home. Parents do not clearly understand what their children are being taught, and both parties often feel that they are no longer capable of talking the same language. Actually, what has been lost is not so much the possibility of intellectual communication as the habit of it.
To take a practical example, from the field of politics, I am in general for the New Deal, partly as a result of academic studies, partly from a youthful sympathy with any creed which bears the progressive label. Most of the members of the older generation whom I know are antiNew Deal. Until recently I should not have dreamed of discussing politics at any length with them; they were ‘diehards,’ ‘reactionaries,’impossible and out-of-date. But within the last year I have been shaken in arguments by the discovery that our conceptions of fundamentals, social justice and the purpose of government, are not far apart. We have usually ended in some form of the old ends-and-means argument, my zeal for the object balanced by their skepticism of the methods. We still differ, but it is only a difference and not a rift, for at least we have been able to meet on common ground — which is more than I can say for many arguments with classmates at college.
The rift between the generations is supposed to be most evident on questions of morality. In its dissatisfaction with the existing code, the younger generation is undoubtedly trying to find out more than our parents would have learned in their youth. But is not this curiosity a matter of the times, not of the different generations? Youth shows its uncertainty in revolt against restriction, but the older generation shows a similar lack of conviction in its imposing list of divorces. Both stem from the same psychological sources.
Perhaps one should make a clear distinction between two groups in the older generation. Having arbitrarily taken the fields of politics and morality, let us say, as a historical approximation, that the revolution in morals dates from the war, the change in political outlook from 1933. For those of the older generation — and their number is not large in my experience — who were so tied to a particular outlook that they were not affected by those revolutions, there is unquestionably a difficulty of communication with the youth of to-day. But those who are post-war in morals, postRoosevelt in political fundamentals, are really as close to the younger generation as were any two generations in the past.
In any case I am sure that no good purpose is served by emphasizing the difference between generations. Nothing contributes to being out-of-date so much as the conviction that one is already behind the times and that it is almost fruitless to try to understand or to catch up. To my mind the older generation is doing a vast task of adjustment extraordinarily well.
Sincerely yours,
WILLIAM P. BUNDY

[Mr. Bundy is twenty, a junior at Yale, and vice chairman of the Yale News.]

FATHER, HUSBAND, AND SON

—, Massachusetts
To the Editor of the Atlantic: —
I should like to tell you of a difficult situation I’ve had to face in the past two years.
I was brought up in a well-to-do home by a self-made father who is a staunch conservative Republican of the old school. Money was not a factor in my life, and security a thing I took for granted. The depression hit this country in 1929 and I literally knew nothing about it until my sophomore year in college in 1932-1933. Education was not a means to an end, but merely a necessary process. At college I heard about strikes, labor organizations, socialism, European politics, but when I discussed such things with my father he put these problems out of my mind by saying such things as ‘The laborer is much better off than he was twenty years ago,’ ‘Strikes are conducted on an unorganized basis,’ ‘Laborers take no responsibility, but destroy property illegally.’
In 1936 I married a young man whose thinking in the preceding six years along social and economic lines had led him to conclusions which were substantially different from those my father reached. His views seemed radical to me. He came from a poor family where money was hard-earned. His favorite authors were Lincoln Steffens and John Strachey, and his talk was concerned with overthrowing the capitalistic order. He had not and still has n’t any use for the majority of capitalists and industrial leaders. Education to him means teaching children, not empty ideals, but actual facts and problems which they are going to face when they enter the adult community— such as the speed-up system in factories, unemployment, and so forth.
These two men have the same basic objectives. For instance, my husband is a strong supporter of the Child Labor Amendment. My father says yes in theory but no in fact. He is against child labor, but he does not want the government to have more control. Let the states take care of it themselves, he says, citing the fact that we do not have much child labor in Massachusetts. Here my husband disagrees both from a humanitarian and from an economic point of view. On every economic subject the two of them have the same objectives, but my father sits back and says that it is a gradual process. He does not want to do anything nationally about these problems for fear of the government’s taking away individual rights and privileges. Actually, in his own companies, the workers do have decent wages, and he is as humane a person as one could ask for. On the other hand, my husband says these things cannot be worked out without drastic changes. Capitalism has failed to give decent living conditions and wages to the majority of the people, and we must have more government control and national planning.
Here I am between the two fires, with a year-old son who will be grown up before I know it. What do I want for him? First of all, security. What do I mean by security? The old hangover from my upbringing urges me to save my pennies and put them in the bank so that my son will never be in need. On the other hand, I want him to develop into a strong man with the capacity to take care of himself. I want him to have the things that money can buy without losing his independence and sense of values. My father is already talking of buying expensive things for my son, and my husband is throwing up his hands in horror. Is n’t there a happy medium whereby my son can have some of these things and be taught the value of them at the same time?
What kind of society do I want him to grow up in? Certainly not the capitalistic society of to-day, because there are too much unemployment, worry, and need in our country. Things are too unsettled. On the other hand, I do not want him to live in a country governed by the mob, because I feel that they are too much swayed by their emotions and the majority of them have had too little education and seem incapable of governing the country. This is still a great problem to me, but at present I am leaning toward a dictatorship which does not deprive one of intellectual freedom. I don’t want a Hitler or a Mussolini, but someone big enough to combine national planning and government control and at the same time give us an unregimented society where people still have the right to think and believe as they wish. Is this too much to ask for my son?
What sort of education do I want my son to have? The private schools and college, with the few friends of the moneyed class, as I did? No. It would not be fair to him to have only one side of the picture painted to him. I want him to go to the public schools, where he can play and work with all types and classes of people and where I hope to find some realistic, honest, and sincere teachers for him. In his last two years before college I want to send him to a private school where he can see the other side of the picture, which I hope by that time he will be able to see as a whole.
When it comes to the social and economic problems of our country, all I want is for him to think honestly and clearly and to be independent. Still deep down inside of me I have a mother’s protective instinct, which I know I must guard closely or he will not grow into the sort of son I have just described.
Sincerely yours,
ELIZABETH—

[A graduate of Smith College, Elizabeth —is now in her twenty-seventh year.]

THE COMING WAR

Santa Monica, California
To the Editor of the Atlantic: —
A war is coming, and I am twenty. I am enrolled in a university, striving to educate myself. I hope some day to serve my country and humanity in a much greater way than I ever can as a man with a gun.
There are millions of other young men like me. All of us have dreams. We read and study, play and think of the future. We enjoy games out in the sun. We enjoy dancing and laughing. We love the music we hear and the books we read; life seems so rich and full of promise as it unfolds before us. We can study and improve our minds and bodies; life will be good. It is true that we can try to help solve the problems that today rest so heavily on the world. We can love, live, and laugh ... or can we? Is it true that the future holds life for us, or death on ground red with blood and scarred by the clawing of our nails as we squirm to die? Is there a future for us? Guns are spewing shells, a war is coming, and we are twenty.
Our fate is in the hands of your generation. We have so little to say. Your generation is guiding America and is moulding our future. Will you send us to die?
We hate no nation. How can we hate the unfortunate peoples of Fascist Italy, Fascist Germany, and imperial Japan? They are but poor people living in a poor country who have turned to the form of government they hope will solve their problems. Must we kill them for that? Are we going to be asked to kill and die to prevent the improvident peoples of the world from striving for a better existence? Must we underline with blood the conviction of our elders that the poor Fascist nations of the world are peopled by barbarians threatening civilization? Must we die for a foreign trade and vague phrases such as ‘the world’s democracies’? Must we be destroyed to protect a Versailles status quo that builds imperial wealth on the improvidence of unfortunate nations? Are you so sure that hunger and privations are not the twin bulwarks of the Fascist international lawlessness that grips the world ?
What will elder America bid us do? Are our national leaders convinced that democratic right is right enough to ask for our blood to uphold it? Perhaps America should let us live to use our education and ideals toward the building of a better America. Perhaps we should be allowed to laugh and live rather than be asked to die fighting a Fascist foe we have never seen.
To-day war is coming. The same selfish forces that asked the young of another generation to lie beneath white crosses in Flanders fields are talking again of saving democracy and of preserving international morality. Our elders are listening to glib tongues and are becoming bitter little by little, day by day, against the poor of the earth under immoral dictators. Is it moral to subjugate half of the peoples of the world to the extent that they turn to half-mad leaders for succor? Is it democratic to use force to maintain an unjust peace? Can’t you solve the world’s difficulties through understanding and good will? Can’t you prevent war by giving a little of life to the oppressed peoples of the world? Can’t you let us live?
We must do what you say. If there is no other way we must give up our dream of life and breathe the stench of gas-filled trenches before falling, a half-destroyed, shapeless thing, education gone through the power of a hand grenade, dreams drowned in the clatter of a machine gun. Amid our studies we wonder at the things happening around us. War is coming and we are twenty. Will you ask us, too, to die?
Sincerely yours,
ROBERT JAMES

[Born in Worthington, Ohio, Mr. James is a high freshman at the University of California at Los Angeles, majoring in ‘political science.]