benefit that would allow them to come home safely. i'm as distressed, more distressed than any member of this committee could of be that there are veterans who are suffering illnesses that may have been a result of their service in the gulf. i do not know if those illnesses are a result of the service in the gulf or not but i think we have to keep that as an operating hypothesis until we find out otherwise. >> c-span, created by america's cable companies as a public service. history book shelf features pob lal american history writers of the past decade and airs on america tv every weekend. "the american way," allan carlson asserts, the family the pimmer of america's identity.

the author makes the point the diminishment in the importance of the traditional family has damaged american culture. this is a little over an hour. now it's my privilege to introduce our principle speaker this morning. dr. allan c. carlson is the distinguished fellow for family policy studies as the family research council, and that is in addition to his full-time job as founder and president of the howard center for family, religion and society in rockford, illinois. among the special roles he's played in his distinguished career, that of general secretary of the world congress of families, numbers one and two, which were held in prague and geneva respectively. dr. carlson received the ab degree from college and a ph.d. from ohio university. now, the biosheet i was getting

ready to read from this morning said she was the author of four books. actually, dr. carlson's been very prolific in his publishing. he informed me that his newest book is actually his seventh, and he's also, of course, written numerous journal articles. but today we celebrate the publication of his new book "the american way," family and community in the shaping of the american identity. published by isi books. copies of the book will be available after the lecture for you to purchase and have dr. carlson sign, if you're interested in doing that. his lecture today is say dapt dapted -- is adapted from this book and without further ado, we welcome dr. allan carlson. >> thank you very much, peter.

thank you all for coming today. america is a nation of individuals and individualism. states and articles posted by the objectivist center shortly after 9/11. it approvingly call american individualism an infuriating obstacle to religious traditionalists like pat robertson and jerry falwell who would like to see the entire nation develop their morality a more major and classic affirmation with the same 1922 book aptlybe found in titled "american individualism" where he labels himself and unashamed individualist holding to the ideals that constitute progressive individualism. in respect to the dignity and

worth of each human life, and to the ideal of equal opportunity, this affirmation is the american creed bears a certain truth. that this sentiment also misses other and perhaps larger truths. my new book "the american way: family and community in the shaping of the american identity" argues instead that images of family, home and religiously grounded community have been the stronger and the more compelling aspects of the american creed. time again during the 20thcenty responded to great challenge, mass immigration, war, economic depression, the rise of communism, global responsibility. by turning to family, home and

faith, it was the well-spring of american identity and unity. these, not individualism, form the american way. also, great american failure, such as the fall of vietnam, communism, have been directly linked to the temporary abandonment of a family and faith-centered american way. in short, my book can you viewsed through a lens, often the result is surprising. it turns out, for example that for a good share of the 20th century, the democrats rather than the republicans could be fairly labeled the pro-family party. one broad truth also becomes

clear. the pro-life and pro-family movements are not products of just the last several decades. since 1900, prominent americans have identified new challenges posed to marriage, family, home and infant life by the modern world, and they have crafted cultural and political strategies to protect these primary and necessary institutions. the contemporary work that family research council and related organizations builds on this rich but now largely forgotten legacy. this morning i will summarize my argument by telling you the story of seven characters. five men and two women found in the book. they and the others describe in its pages are the architects of the modern family and faith-centered american way.

first, okay, that's good theodore roosevelt. he can be fairly labeling the the first onlily pro-life and pro-family president. aggregates of his biographers, most recently edwin morris, largely ignored. u.s. president from 1901 to 1909, roosevelt clearly identified the foes, his word, of the american family. the practice of willful sterility in marriage, by which he meant birth control and abortion, was a capital sin against civilization, he said. a practice that meant national death. he held liberal reentinterpreta,

he blasted birth control and expressed the linkage between family creation and americanism. if you do not believe in your own people enough to bear larger families, then you are not good americans and you are not patriots. and i for one shall not mourn your extinction. and in such event, i shall welcome the advent of a new race that will take your place, because you will have shown that you are not fit to cumber the ground. mr. roosevelt condemned as fools those "professional" feminists who labeled wives and mothers at home as pair site women. parasite women. the homekeeping woman was not a parasite on society. she is society. roosevelt also pointed to easy divorce as a foe of the family.

calling it a bane nation, a curse to society, a menace to the home and insightment to married unhappiness and to immorality. the multiplication of divorces in america, he concluded, meant that some principle of evil was at work. of greater importance, roosevelt craft add positive philosophy of family life. he regularly emphasized the centrality of the child rich family to american existence as the cell of society. it is in the life of the family upon which in the last analysis the whole welfare of the nation rests. the nation is nothing but the aggregate of the families within its borders. moreover, a nation existed only as its sons and daughters thought of life not as something concerned only with the selfish

em necessariens of the individual, but as a link in the great chain of creation and pausation. a chain forged by the vital duties and the high happiness of family life. in this manner, the family was the essential wellspring of american citizenship. roosevelt's words again in all the world, there is no better and healthier home, no finer factory of individual character, nothing more representative of what is best and most characteristic in american life than that which exists in the higher type of family, and this higher type of family is to be found everywhere among us. mr. roosevelt also painted a remarkably fresh and compelling portrait of marriage. the good marriage, he argued, was a full partnership in which each partner is ooer as well as of his or her own.

the way for men honor this and the mother, was to insist on her treatment as the full equal of her husband. regarding the raring of offspring, there must be common parental care for children by both father and mother. roosevelt's view of marital partnership, though, went beyond the vision of shared responsibilities. on the emotional and spiritual side, he said that a true marriage would be a partnership of the soul. the spirit and the mind. no less. the highest ideal of the family, he wrote, could be on tainobtaiy when the father and mother stand together as lovers and friends. and the practical and material side, roosevelt believed in early marriage is a counter to temptation towards immorality. more profoundly, he believed

that the successful marriage, the partnership of happiness, must also be a partnership of work. anticipating the later insights of microeconomist, roosevelt understood that the strong family must be a true economic unit. our aim, he wrote, must be to healthy, economic interdependence of sexes. a craft the economic independence, attempts, would create a falseonom function, ann national ruin. a report roosevelt called for bear at least four encourage children and hopefully more. motherhood should be protected, he wrote from immersion into industry. income and inheritance taxes should be immensely heavier on

the childless and on families with one or two children, while an equally heavy discrimination should lie in favor of the family with over three children. for example, roosevelt suggested that the couple should receive an income tax exemption of $500 now worth about $10,000, for each of their first two children, and $1,000 for today's value $20,000, for each subsequent child. roosevelt also argued that government pay scales should give a preference to parents of larger families. in all lowest salary should be paid the man or woman with nofoonly one and a marked discrimination made in favor of the man or woman with a family of over three children. the american federation of state and county and municipal employees would think about that idea today?

my second character is julia lathrop. she was the first woman to have a federal government agency. in 1912, the president william howard taft, a republican, appointed her as chief of the new u.s. children's bureau. the following year his successor, democrat woodrow wilson, reappointed lathrop to post, as did successor in 1921, republican warren g. harding. i have the special fondness for julia lathrop in part because her family home is in the very neighborhood in which i have lived now for the last 22 years. churchill's grove in roquefort, illinois. her former residence stands three short blocks from my own home. three blocks in the other direction can be found her grave in greenwood cemetery. the daughter of a republican

congressman from northern illinois, ms. lathrop began her work in the 1880s in chicago, alongside another former ro rockford residence. between 1880 and 1914, let us remember, an average of 1 million new immigrants arrived each year. relative to existing population, this migratory flow occurred at nearly three times the current rate. majorities of these newcomers neither spoke english nor practiced the protestant faith. many observers worried about the rise of hyphenated cultures such as german-american, or ta

italian-american that these threatened the culture and communities. lathrop on cluded that the immigration problem was in fact a problem of homes. americanization meaning assimilation and unity, could best be secured by focusing on a common motherhood using images of marriage, of children and home to represent the american way of life. along with fellow activists such as florence kelly, grace abbott, mary anderson, josephine baker and frances keller, lathrop form add world view sometimes called social feminism, better labeled, maternalism. it offered a new way of citizenship built on one motherhood from diversely situated women.

these reformers believed that all women shared the maternalist vocation and, therefore, all women controlled the future of the republic. hull house, for example, featured a labor museum for children, where they could see the charm of women's traditional tasks. the milking, the gardening, the marketing, which are such direct expressions of the slis tude and affection at the basis of all human life. the maternalists also viewed the modern homemaking class as the point of their american strategy. among their policy victories were the smith-beaver extension act and the smith-hughes vocational act of 1917, which funded home economic teachers and curricula across the country to train young women as future mothers and homemakers.

more broadly, ms. lathrop and others helped restore health e famiy families throughout. speaking at her alma mater she call and university women to create a single center of training for research in the problems of the family. in order to give women in the home the status of a profession and to elevate into a national system strong, free and lasting, the cult of the american family. interesting choice of words. central to maternalist thinking was the concept of a family wage pointing to research showing that as the father's average income doubled, the infant mortality rate was more than half. julia lathrop concluded that a decent income self-respectively earned by the father is the beginning of wisdom, the only

fair division of labor between the father and the mother of young children and the strongest safeguard against a high infant mortality rate. at the children's bureau, she pro pepped the first and simplest duty of women is to safe it guard the lives of mothers and babies. condemning birth control, her goal, encourage for better health care for all mothers before, during and after pregnancy. she called the campaign "baby saving." the bureau published books on prenatal care and infant care. distributing 1.5 million free copies of the latter by 1925. the bureau encouraged the formation of "little mothers "leagues. by 1915, the bureau counted over 50,000 member girls, mostly immigrant children in 44 cities. the bureau relentlessly promoted

breast feeding and discouraged early weaning and infant formula use. in 1916, it crafted a national baby week. over 4,200 communities took part through lecture, baby care seminar as and parades. best mother contests tested mothers' knowledge. tore through celebrated motherhood as a vital institution, mothers with infants in arms marched, paraded down main street to the applause of the flag-waving townspeople. at the bureau's request, congress declared 1918 to be the year of the child. its campaign to promote good mothering and reduce infant mortality involved that year an amazing 11 million american women. ms. lathrop's greatest policy achievement, passing of the shepherd counter act in 1921.

in 1918, maternal deaths in childbirth still numbered 23,000 in the year. up from 16,000 two years earlier. and the infant mortality rate that year still stood at 100 deaths per 1,000 live births. about twice the level found in western europe. shepherd towner would provide funds for state-level programs of instruction in maternal and infant hygiene, prenatal child health clinics and visiting nurses for pregnant and new mothers. in ms. lathrop's words, challenged the americanization of the family. it is not to get the government to do things for the family, she said. it is to create a family that can do things for itself. the american medical association fiercely opposed shepherd counter. calling it german paternalism,

socialism, sob stuff. all the same, the law appears to have worked. infant deaths due to gast gastrointestinal diseases, the ones most preventible by education fell 49% between 1920 and 1928. as the first social entitlement without means test, shepherd counter was notably a successful pro-life and pro-family. my third character is arthur altmire. only recently have american historians come to appreciate how religious communetarians born in europe took root in america during the late 19th century. in his important volume "the minds of the west," berkeley historian john yarty shows how the flowering of intellectual movements carried from europe

built upon fears of familial social decline. in response, these idea movements in america sought to privilege national institutions such as the family and the community. and to protect them from artificial, artificial structures, such as the great corporation of the state. he emphasizes this new idea especially flourished in the german-speaking areas of america, where romantic notions of on on ganic society composed of people enveloped by groups took root. german-american, roman catholics drew encouragement from the pope. and from the irish-american advocate of the family wage ideal, father john ryan. german-american protestants showed a similar turn for

humanitarian thought. among lutherans and the conservative missouri set, the theological leadership of c.f.w. emphasized the priority of the congregation and the family over the individual and state. indeed, he said the family was the foundation not only of the church but also of the state. meanwhile, many dutch and german calvinists in america embraced the anti-liberal thought of abraham piper who characteristically wrote, the home, wonderful creation of god. for the individual the proceeds of life are from the heart, so for society are the proceeds of life from the home. this religious background to pro-family social reform helps explain a curious fact. recent feminists historians loathe the new deal.

this, constructed during the 1930s. they do not object just to some of its parts. they condemn the broad domestic policy of the franklin d. roosevelt administration, precisely because it favored the traditional family. it is important to note here that the great depression triggered in 1929 was more than just an economic crisis. it was also a crisis of the family. the vast majority of the newly unemployed 15 million workers were once bread-winning men in the industrial setting. not by convince den, the u.s. marriage and birth rates both tumbled by 20% during the short 1929 to '33 period. the opening years of the great depression.

the roots of the new deal in religiously communal thinking and the actual pro-family nature of many new deal projects converge in the story of arthur altmire, and the social security amendments of 1939. born and rared in small town wisconsin, from german immigrants. at the university of wisconsin he became a student of john commons who emphasized ways for government to protect families and communities from so-called predatory special interests. according to historian linda gordon, most members of this wisconsin school of social reform "took their christianity very seriously." and considered their reform work part of a christian moral vision. unquote. altmire's opportunity came in

1937 when the new social security system was already on the point of collapse of repeal. the initial act of 1935 was actually quite limited in scope. the government began collecting payroll taxes in 1936, but no old age benefits would be paid out until 1942. moreover, workers recovered solely as individuals, dependents were considered irrelevant. 1936, the democratic platform pledged "the protection of the family and the home." wouldn't it be nice to see that again? republicans ran for congress in 1938 criticizing the recent social security act for being too stingy. and gained in congress. with the senate finance committee created the federal advisory council to recommend reforms, altmire and five other

university of wisconsin graduates won appointment. these six represent add full quarter of the panel. as historian larry wick explains, the council's report extracted altmire's agenda almost perfectly, fundamentally altered the nature of the program by adding survivors and dependent benefits. this changed social security fri a program based on the economic security of the individual worker and made it a program focused on the economic security of the family unit. my fourth character is molly duson. a graduate of wellesley college, she is sometimes calmed america's first female political boss. in 1933 she gained appointment as head of the women's division of the democratic national committee. and in 1937, president roosevelt appointed her to the social security board.

where she also play add key role in shaping the 1939 amendments. like all other maternalists, molly duson was a fierce foe of the proposed equal rights amendment to the u.s. constitution. as actual or potential mothers, she thought, women needed special legal protection. she also endorsed thebread-winning role of men regarding the proposed amendments, she explained, men who can afford it always consider it their first duty to provide insurance protection for their wives and children. survivor benefits extend the same kind of protection to families who need it most, and can afford it least. in addition, molly duson underscored the importance of strong families to the nation as a whole. when you begin to help the family to attain s