Phyllis Schlafly knew what it was like to work hard in
college. She did not get through college with “privilege.” She got through
college by working nights full-time at a munitions plant. Her job was to test
the rifles and machine guns being sent to the boys fighting on the front lines
in World War II. Simultaneously, she attended classes at Washington University
in St. Louis, where she graduated with honors. Needless to say, she wasn’t
exactly sympathetic to the plight of campus rioters and draft dodgers in 1970.
However, what sets her apart from some of the other voices of the Greatest
Generation is that she did not write off all youth as being beyond hope, either.
That realistic optimism makes the June and December 1970 PS Reports exceptionally insightful and applicable to today.
The June 1970 Phyllis
Schlafly Report ran with the headline “The Hard Hats Versus the Soft
Heads.” In it, Phyllis disassembled the arguments of campus protestors in the
classic Schlafly fashion. First, she unashamedly called the problem as she saw
it, identifying the “soft heads” responsible as professional agitators, radical
professors, spineless administrators, broken-down law enforcement, and
Communist interference. Next, she used sound logic and hard evidence to explain
why protestors were wrong. Finally, she expounded on the simple steps that
could be taken to solve the problem. “There is only one language the soft heads
understand – cut off the money.” Her words were colloquial, her logic was
sound, and her solutions were practical. The June 1970 PS Report is the perfect illustration of Phyllis’s uncanny ability
to take seemingly complex problems and boil them down to one simple article that
anyone could pick up and educate themselves with.
The December 1970 Phyllis
Schlafly Report shows a different talent that Phyllis possessed. Titled
“College and High School Students on Our Side,” this article explained why the
youth are a boon for conservatives, not for liberals. In the election of 1970 –
in which Phyllis made an unsuccessful run for Congress – college rioters vowed
to come out in droves against conservatives. However, that simply did not
happen. As Phyllis explained, “The obvious explanation is that they [campus
radicals] found political campaigns too much hard work with no time out for
rioting. . . . The sort of students who are stirring up trouble on college
campuses have many faults, and one of the principal ones is that they don’t like
to work.” She knew as well as anyone what a difficult process it was to work a
political campaign. She liked to say, “I’ve run for office and I wouldn’t wish
it on Betty Friedan.” She knew that campus rioters would not be willing to do
the heavy lifting, and indeed they didn’t. However, she also knew that
conservative young people were not that way. She called them the most valuable
asset of her campaign. She also found them very easy to recruit. “They must be
made to feel wanted and needed. This is no problem to anyone used to working
with volunteers.” Being the brilliant political strategist that she was,
Phyllis Schlafly saw the untapped and overlooked potential of young people and
made a clarion call to conservatives to correct that.
Just as in 1970, the youth of today are largely written off as being either liberal or lazy (more likely both.) However, nothing could be further from the truth. There are many dedicated young conservatives who are looking for a cause to get behind, and it is up to us to present that opportunity to them. “There, I think, is the key. We have to ask them to participate. . . . Go and ask these bright and eager young people to participate in politics – our kind of politics.” They say that the hallmark of a good leader is to unlock the hidden potential of others. Phyllis Schlafly could do that like no other, and that is why we should celebrate and emulate her legacy.
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