Partly responsible, I think, is their sheltered, generally middle-class youth and their unfamiliarity with the issues. To such individuals the easy answers of the ultra-conservatives to difficult questions are very appealing; a few easily memorized slogans suffice for a platform on which one can exercise his emotions.
Older Republicans may be just as unknowledgeable, but when asked to nominate candidates or pass resolutions at a national convention, they at least are aware of the mood of the voters and the realities of 20th century politics. For the senior party, thoughtless or extreme stands cost votes, victories and jobs; for the more conservative Young Republicans, taking such stands costs only the respect of some of their elders, while the catharsis it brings usually seems worth that small price (It should be observed that parallel situations arise in many liberal organizations).
Secondly, the Young Republican national Federation tends to attract a different kind of worker than does the senior party. Despite its image among Democrats, the Republican Party as a whole is broadly based economically and ethnically, through its sociological "bell curve" may be on the prosperous side of the Democrats'. Such diversity is not so characteristic of the Young Republican National Federation-the desire of the present national leadership not withstanding.
In college and in the early years of a career and marriage, only the fairly well-to-do middle class partisan can afford to be active in a party organization, especially in a leadership capacity, which may require attendance at meetings and conventions often hundreds of miles from home. The more financially secure Republicans, not surprisingly, tend to be the more conservative ones.
One gets the impression among Young Republican groups-even, although to a lesser degree, at Harvard that many future politicians are not in them; those who will be party leaders may be biding their time in these early years, studying or working, and plan to skip right over the YR's.
This may be a wise route to political success. Young republican internal politics are often more petty and degrading than the senior party's even though the stakes are lower. By avoiding the YR's, one enters politics later with fewer enemies.
Moreover, unlike special issue groups such as SANE, the Young Republicans(or Young Democrats for that matter) tend not to be intellectually oriented as on organization. The Harvard Young Republicans have produced policy papers on civil rights and civil defense, and presently are assisting state legislators in research on Beacon Hill. But this is not typical fare for a Young Republican club, and not even the primary interest of the Harvard Young Republicans.
If one wants to participate in politics intimately familiar with the issues, he will become better acquainted with them outside the Young Republicans than within. Unhappily it is characteristic of all political organizations in both parties, that intellectual attainment is undervalued.
Nothing, however, precludes a Young Republican member from being intimately familiar with issues on his own. And by working as well in the Young Republican Club he learns early the lessons of practical politics that can give him sounder judgment than the aspiring Republican who remains aloof from the YR's. If his experience brings enemies early, it also brings firm friends. From shared political projects in the Young Republicans, peripheral and unaffiliated organizations can spring.
The Young Americans for Freedom, Advance,and the new Republican research group made up of Harvard and MIT assistant professors and graduate students (the Ripon society) all sprang up in recent years from individuals connected in some way with Young Republican clubs. These organizations may now have little to do with Young Republicans, but Young Republican experience helped stimulate their formation.
Membership in the Young Republicans is also economically and vocationally valuable. It is a fact of politics that the ambitious young aspirant in either party will win a job in Washington or influence in his home state more readily if he has a practical background. Of course a would-be politician in college is well advised to learn to think, for the glands alone cannot produce political success. But also it is advantageous for him to learn to operate in a practical political context like the Young republicans, no matter how obnoxious the right wingers and how petty the annual election fights. For in the conflict between men of thought and men of action, the laurels in politics go to the latter.
BRUCE K. CHAPMAN '62 is publisher of Advance, a progressive Repubilcan magazine, now based in Washington, which he and several friends founded at Harvard two years ago. His views in this article are his own and do not necessarily represent those of the CRIMSON.