Quote of the Day | October 2, 2008: His Mind Was Not His Own Property

From David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, 1972:

Once, in an interview in Georgia, Rusk talked of the traits instilled in him by a Calvinist father. He defined it as a "sense of the importance of right and wrong which was something that was before us all the time. I think there was a sense of propriety, a sense of constitutional order, a sense of each playing his part in the general scheme of things, with a good deal of faith and confidence, with a passionate interest in education." He did not question these institutions; they had become what they were not by happenstance but because wise men who had thought a long time had deliberately fashioned them that way; nor did he severely question their current attitudes, which again had not arisen by happenstance; indeed he found American and Western institutions admirable in contrast to the disorder which existed in the rest of the world.

He was part of that generation which felt gratitude for what was offered him. It was in that sense generational; his attitudes were close to those of a previous generation, while in the Dean Rusk family the values would change, would be less conservative: a son would work for the Urban League and would be part of the anti-Whitney Young movement because Young was too moderate; a daughter would marry a Negro. In this family, as in many others, children were more confident, more willing to challenge the existing order. "Rusk," said someone at the White House who knew him well and liked and respected him, "was different from the rest of us. He was poor and we had not been, but he really was more of my father's generation. You don't show feelings, you don't complain, you work very hard and you get ahead, and there was a sense that his mind was not his own property, that he was not allowed to let it take him where it wanted to go; there were instead limits to what you could think. Strict confines."

Tags: David Halberstam, The Best and the Brightest