beginning to erect a national structure for the same purpose. through the well-being of the family, we create the well-being of the nation. through our constructive contributions to the one we help the other to flourish. the curious fact about molly duson is that she was probably a lesbian. she never used this word to describe herself, but the facts of her life do suggest that it may be an accurate modern label. whatever we might say about her private life, though, her public advocacy was consistently even fervently pro-family. my fifth character is henry loos. the founder of time inc. and editor in treef of time, fortune and life magazine, henry exuded

and extraordinary influence on american life in the middle decades of the 20th century. boin to presbyterian missionary parents, loos was a god-driven man. an optimist reformed by christian hope. his weekly picture journal "life" first appeared in 1936. it was the most successful new publication in american history. by 1945, nine years later, 15 million american families read "life" each week. loos used his influence to try to shape a better america. for example it was in "life" he first used the phrase, the american century. in 1940, to highlight this nations emerging global responsibilities and his own task, nation building. as he told his editors a few years later, i have the faithful belief that the america that we work for will win in this time and age if we do our part.

in a sense, everything does depend on you. if we persevere our life timeless see not the peace, but certainly the truce of god. one by american fortitude, energy, generosity and ideals. as loos surveyed the world of postworld war ii america, he placed his greatest hope on the evidentiary renewal of american family life. his vision of a family centered in faith-centered nation received dramatic visual confirmation and in 1947 a promotional campaign for "life" called "the new america." "life" photographers using special pan graphic cameras welded 14,000 new photos into 27 sequences using five synchronized projectors, a new

fade in and fade out technique and a 40-foot high screen and featuring a fresh, stirring musical score, "the new america" was shown to 175,000 carefully selected national leaders in 60 cities. the presentation's central theme was that the america of 1947 and the america of the mid-1930s, barely a decade ago, were almost two different countries. so huge are the changes that have increased our national stature. the components of this new america included the baby boom, the script celebrated the return of population growth to america. the surging american birth rate. since 1940, the pop ration late had grown by 10 million providing new customers with greater wants and greater buying powers. at county fairs, great new crowds of people being handedly taken in by the preposterous

valuations of the midways. on main street we cannot fail to say there are many more of us. more people in stores. more people with more money. the glitter everywhere proclaimed how many more americans there are. to enjoy the pleasant things of our national life. there were mushrooming numbers of new suburban grade schools as well. college enrollments at an all-time high. everywhere there was growth. the new family. since 1940, the presentation reported, 5 million new families had formed in america. an increase of 15% in only seven years. moreover, vast numbers of families were climbing into the middle class. in consequence, we see all around us the pleasant homes of american citizens and one of the greatest reasons for our confidence in future prosperity lies in the number of homes that

must be built, furnished and equipped. spiritual reawakening. the new america also had a significant spiritual quality. manifested in our devotion to many religions, our love of our country and respect for our national decency. our love of our children, and our grandchildren, and our faith in the american way of life. these values undergirded our new-found confidence, our awakening to the new and almost limitlop power. the new america has rediscovered the nation's historic freedom. the american nation stood at the , loos used greatness. "life" magazine in particular to br boom, the bread winner, homemaker, child-rich family in

its new suburban location, and the spiritual renewal of american churches. by 1960, in the results. in an editorial on president dwight eisenhower's pending retirement, "life" praised him for giving the community and goodwill of the american people ch recover and grow. the editorial celebrated the construction of 8 million new family homes, rising scholastic test scores and a record-high birth rate. the american people did all these and more. they did them under the benign eyes eisenhower sun, when so many age-old visions of the good life first became real. my sixth character is walt whitman rostile.historian, beca

head of national security policy during the 1960s. intelligently and fiercely anti-communist. he urged that the vietnam war be fought to a successful end. unlike most colleagues in the lyndon johnson administration, he never waivered in his faith that america could bear this burden and seep the result. a southeast asia and world free of communist tyranny. undergirding this conclusion was his confidence in the american family. in the mid-1950s, with a carnegie foundation grant, he had conducted a fundamental re-examination of american values and institutions. as reported in his long 1957 essay "the american style," he found these values to be in contrast to aristocratic

tickle europe he wrote, the american style includes a narrower but perhaps more intense family and a tendency to conform to the will of the political and social majority. america's family, churches and voluntary associations wove a highest individualistic and mobile population into a firm social fabric exhibiting a widening area of common values. under the strain of cold war against communism, americans have retained the old link between nationhood and ideal values. indeed, he said, recent developments had only strengthened. higher incomes aloud increase leisure, earlier marriages and more children. the insecurity of the cold war had increased americans' concern

with values which transcend of the vis tudes a of life span, notely family and religion, even the emerging social security system, he thought, had contributed to the baby boom. in short, he held social stability, return to religion and reinvigorated family life evident in 1957. showing the solidness and vitality of the american identity and the american character. americans with these values would be able to bear the burdens of a foreign policy that could defeat communism. as he wrote in the document, "basic national security policy" in 1962, the success of the whole doctrine and strategy developed in this paper depends on the capacity of the u.s. to sustain a performance at home which reaches deeply into our domestic arrangements and which

requires widespread assumption of responsibility and sacrifice for public purposes by our people. then came what we now call simply the '60s. an array of ideologues, launched assaults on the er system. neomalfoogss, partisans of population control attacked the baby boom. equity feminists denounced the mother at home and the maternalist public policies that affirmed that role. sexual revolutionaries blasted the cultural assumptions that still tied appropriate sex to marriage and procreation. the new left condemned virtually every institution of the new america from suburbs and shopping malls to large families and optimism wth.

these ideas quickly gained ground inside the federal government. their partisans drove the ma ternists out of policy positions and out of the democratic party. the pro-family welfare state was turned on its head, and became destructive of families. not coincidentally, the american pause in vietnam stumbled and failed. ushering in that period of malay known at the '70s. and symbolized by the floundering jimmy carter presidency. which brings me to my final character. ronald reagan. recovering the voice of theodor roosevelt, president ronald reagan, a democrat turned republican, worked to resurrect the american identity, built on religious morality and shared family life. this time for the world to know

our intellectual and spiritual value, rooted in the source of all strength, he stated in his famed 1981 speech at notre dame. a belief in a supreme being and a law higher than our own. in time of crisis and challenge, reagan said elsewhere, families kept safe our actual churt heritage reinforced spiritual values. he added it is time to recommit ourselves to the concept of the family. the concept that must withstand the trends of lifestyles and legislation. from 1986 until the end of his presidency three years later, reagan gave mounting attention to strengthening the nation's family system. the family provides children with a haven of love and concern. he told the student congress on evangelism. for parents, it provides a strong sense of purpose and

meaning in life. when the family is strong, the nation is strong. when the family is weak, the nation itself is weak. speaking in chicago, reagan echoed the words of molly duson. the family is the bedrock of our nation, he said. but it is also the engine that gives our country life. it's for our families that we work and labor so that we can join together around the dinner table, bring our children up the right way, care for our parents and reach out to those less fortunate. it is the power of the family that holds the nation together that gives america her conscience and that serves as the cradle of our country's soul. now echoing jewely lathrop, reagan hinted the family could again serve as a force for assimilation and national unity, and a new time of mass immigration. we have all been enriched by the

contributions of hispanics in every walk of american life, he told an audience in the white house rose garden. most characteristic of hispanic culture he continued was la casa. the almost mystical center of daily life where grandparents and children and grandchildren all come together in the familia. he added, but i fear that too often in the mad rush of modern american life some people have not learned the great wisdom of our hispanic heritage, the lesson of family and home and church and community. the most coherent effort by the reagan administration to resurrect a traditionalist family policy was the 66-page report developed by an interagency working group on the family shared by undersecretary of education gary bower. entitled "the family" preserving america's future, and released

in november 1986, the document blasted the abrasive experiments of two liberal decades, such as day care, population control. no-fault divorce, sex education and values clarification in the schools. in their place, the report affirmed what it called homed truths. home truths. intact, families are good. families who choose to have children are making a desirable decision. mothers and father whose then decide to spend a good deal of time raising those children it doing a good thing for those children. public policy and the culture in general must support and reaffirm these decisions. president reagan signed executive order 12606 on september 2, consequence of th bower report, this order required federal agencies to

develop family impact statements when crafting and implementing regulations and policies. specific criteria included, does this action by government strengthen or erode the stability of the family and particularly the marital commitment? does this action strengthen or erode the authority and rights of parents and the education, nurture and supervision of their children? and, does this action help the family perform its functions or does it substitute governmental activity for the function? however, largely ignored by the permanent government of bureaucrats, the executive order had little real effect. president bill clinton rescinded it on april 21, 1997. what then should we now do? i close the book by stressing the continuing even urgent need for a national identity rooted in family and faith.

only natural and internalized restraints respect for motherhood, sanctification of marriage and family, concern for the home economy, esteem for the natural communities that shelter families. only these, i believe, can hold the modern american state in balance with human values and as well as in foreign adventures and trade. the reagan administration's concept of a family impact statement frail, frail approximation. the proper role to the played by such a shared national identity. but it did not go far enough. what language about family and community might be fit for 21st century americans? these qualities at least. affirmation of the family is the natural and irreplaceable human community. one defined as a man and woman

living in marriage for the purposes of propagating and rearing children, sharing int macy and resources and conserving lineage, property and tradition. recognition that men and women should be equal in legal, political and property rights, but are different in reproductive, economic and social functions. differences ought to be accommodated in policy and law. encouragement for the industrialization and return of vital functions to the family circle, with home schooling as the most practical and successful recent motto. respect for the ancient and still most honorable skills of housewivering and history and a vital economy. celebration of the birth of new babies and cultural and policy encouragement to the child-rich family. and protection from political interference and economic

exploitation for those spontaneous communities, religious and secular, that nurture and sustain families. in the european union of 2003, these values are openly rejected. a common democratic socialism quietly snuffs out remaining pockets of traditional european family life. one consequence of this postfamily environment there is the accelentent. while a cultural offchute of europe's, america has always been different. even in the degraded times of the early 21st century, americans talk of marriages, babies, mothers, fathers, husbands and wives in ways that make sift kasophisticated europeans cringe.

these are american concerns which do not concern us, a swed when asked a few years ago about his country's marriage rates. indeed, these are with some unnecessary accretions, the qualities that i cited above once served as the american way. they should and they can again. thank you. >> thank you very much, allan. and we do have time to take a little -- take a few questions from the audience if there is anyone who would like to make a question. please stand and identify yourself if you have a question. yes. >> you got a microphone there. aimed right at you.

there you go. >> scott bennett, department of health and human services. just wondering, wonderful lecture, what you would say for what my agency might be able to do to reorganize, re-emphasize, rehabilitate ourselves to follow some of this wisdom. >> i have a lot of sympathy and respect for the work of the maternalists and your agency, in fact is a direct descendant to julia lathrop's work at the children's bureau and the women's bureau. i would go back and reread what they did. some of their language seems a little stilted in our time. but i think they had a proper understanding that -- that women and men are wonderfully different from each other, that in fact there would be -- what flows out of that is in fact a series of obligations that governments as well as the rest

of culture have in terms of defending motherhood, fatherhood, small children and life and whatever laws come along, including such major laws as social security need to be configured around those principles. now, the problem gets to be -- actually, your agency did a pretty good job of defending them up until the early 1970s when they finally just gave up. and part of the problem became the -- several prominent provisions were knocked down by the equal protection, by the supreme court under the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment. ways to work around that now, but i think it is possible. i think some of the initiatives going on there right now relative to healthy marriages are a step in the right direction, somewhat experimental at this point. we don't know what's going to work, but it is a worthy effort to try that. i think we're on the right track. also regarding how do you

protect families and children, particularly larger families, again, some positive gains have been made over the last ten years in tax policy. the indexing of the exemption for children, income tax exempt, which need to be bigger and become universal in my view, the efforts to repair the marriage penalty, which are slowly heading back to the concept of income splitting which is a very prominent feature of american family policy in the 1940s and 1950s, these are all things that are -- that we're heading in the right direction. and in fact, there is some good news. at least up until 2001, for the first time in a long time the marital fertility rate is climbing again. for the first time in a long time, the proportion of women with small children staying home after birth is going up, rather than the other way.

i think the next step in tax policy, which i -- actually we're going to be talking about next week is finding ways of creating greater fairness in the dependent care tax credit. right now restricted just to those who use by day care. the proposal is to universalize it and make that tax benefit available to all parents with preschool children, expanding everybody's choices. so i think you're on the right track, actually. but i would go back and read their work. it is -- i think it is rich and wonderful. and even one great place to start is this book by gwendolyn mink called "the wage of motherhood," i think. she has a feminist story. but she's also a good historian and she tells the story pretty well. once in a while, her own viewpoint comes in, but she's a good historian. gwendolyn mink's book i would recommend. anyone who wants to know the story of the maternalist better.

>> another question? >> al, affiliated with washington writers and solution radio. wondering if you would have any explanation over the dysfunctional family aspects of recent american presidents. and i guess maybe in, you know, ronald reagan would stand out in particular, it seems to me. but i guess gerald ford was the first american president that had married a divorced woman, but, of course, he wasn't really elected, but then ronald reagan was the first president that was actually divorced himself. and my understanding was both bill clinton and ronald reagan had come from families where the father had a problem with alcohol. and it seems like even with our current president george w. bush, maybe the attraction to alcohol that he had in his youth is influenciis

and i'm just wondering too as far as -- i don't know if you heard the story, just recently heard it, michael reagan recounted, i guess his high school graduation, he was in with other classmates and i guess he really had had limited time with his own father growing up, and his father introduced himself to everyone there and said i'm ronald reagan, he didn't recognize his own son at that graduation ceremony. i'm wondering if you had -- i'm wondering too where american -- the american voting public, you know, is attracted to political figures like this. >> well, it's a good question. obviously, i would hold up, i think, theodore roosevelt as the better model. and it is true that, in a sense, gerald ford and ronald reagan sort of broke the divorce barrier in presidential politics. before that time, it was largely assumed that if you had a divorce, you were out of the running. it just wasn't possible.

with that said, obviously a broader shift in values took place in the '60s and '70s. for example, it used to be common, i know, at least in the lutheran church if a pastor was divorced, it was a career-ending move. he was going to go have to find other work than being a parish pastor. today divorced pastors say that actually is a benefit, because it allows them to become better counselors. so -- i don't think that's true. but it just shows to a broader shift in the culture and the acceptability of divorce. which still as late as the early '60s was still something of a scandal atapped attached to it. today it's an -- it's an underlying shift in values in the '60s. i think it's starting to be thought through again. there's a lot of bad ideas justifying that, saying, well, divorce is just between two people. children bounce back pretty quick.

we're learning more and more that none of that is true. divorce is not just an act that affects two people. a recent study in utah looked at the costs of divorce, of the annual -- just the number of annual divorces that year in utah. the cost to the public in terms of counseling programs, in terms of a whole series of direct costs. welfare would go up. and found in the state of utah alone, divorce was costing the taxpayers something like $150 million. so it has a public effect. and it clearly has a very negative effect on children. that's been documented by judith wallerstein's work, and in fact hundreds of researchers. kids don't bounce back all that well. so i think it's being rethought through again. some of those old prejudices and biases, while sometimes carried to the wrong extremes, sometimes they had -- some of them had a basis. and, in fact, i'll call a common

wisdom of the human species. but you're right. it was -- i think the modern presidency reflects the values that emerged in the '60s and '70s, which took away the barriers to a divorced person being elected president. >> did you have -- >> family relationships? >> well, i've read some of that. of i haven't read that actually, so i really shouldn't comment on it. >> as far as, like, having an alcoholic father, stepfather? >> i'm sure it has an effect. >> that can't be positive. >> of course you're right. >> it may be helps you compartmentlize which i guess in the presidency may have some benefits. from? >> what i've read before, there were -- ronald reagan's family had problems. a lot of people's families had problems with children growing up in those years. they were tougher years. i do believe this. i think the